Permanent
by cowgirlfromhell
Summary: Dean Winchester finds his saving grace only to lose her. Third fic in this particular alternate reality. 1st was 'Daddy's Gone a Hunting', 2nd 'Nocturnal Omissions'. All can stand alone but you might enjoy the others.
1. Chapter 1

Is this the moment where I look you in the eye?  
Forgive my broken promise that you'll never see me cry  
And everything, it will surely change even if I tell you I won't go away today  
Will you think that you're all alone  
When no one's there to hold your hand?  
And all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary rest your head  
I'm permanent

I know he's living in hell every single day  
And so I ask oh god is there some way for me to take his place  
And when they say it's all touch and go I wish I could make it go away  
But still you say  
Will you think that you're all alone when no one's there to hold your hand?  
When all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary, rest your head  
I'm permanent  
I'm permanent

Is this the moment where I look you in the eye?  
Forgive my promise that you'll never see me cry

David Cook

Permanent

Dean Winchester opened his eyes and knew that God hadn't answered his prayers. He was still alive.

He remained still while the sun rose higher in the sky to shine brightly through the windows, the light hurting his blood shot eyes. Blocks of bright gold and white shimmered and warmed his skin through his jeans as he lay where he had slept, on the floor. He'd more than likely passed out, dead drunk, and in the throes of another nightmare he had probably rolled off of the bed. Whatever.

It didn't matter because he would have gladly traded the hard wood floor of one of Bobby Singer's spare bedrooms for the freshly turned earth in which he had buried her just a week before. He'd have changed places with her in a split second because she deserved to be alive and not dead for reasons he couldn't understand.

Dean didn't want to but he took in a deep breath and lamented the fact that his breathing wouldn't stop on command anymore than his heart would stop beating just because he wanted it to. Bobby had said it would get better but the young hunter couldn't see the light at the end of his tortured tunnel. It was too soon...or maybe it was just too late.

Getting up off of the floor he saw the empty whiskey bottle and the state of the room. He had trashed it,yet again and now, in the remorseful stage of this hangover, he hoped he'd kept the damage outside of the room and within his family to a minimum.

Walking up to the window he pulled back the curtain and looked resentfully at the beautiful blue sky and cursed God for rubbing salt into his wounds. There should only be dark clouds and cold rain, forever, and as he watched the sun travel higher in the sky it glinted off of the Impala's hood. Dean remembered how she had loved that car, had driven it the way it was meant to be driven, lead footed and with classic rock blaring from the speakers and damn the price of the gas it guzzled. God, he would miss her.

He'd miss her hands. Cool on his neck on a hot day as he leaned into the engine compartment fiddling with the plug wires or the carburetor while she watched over his shoulder. He'd miss shouting out to her to turn down the damn music so she could at least hear him when he told her to bump the key so he could set the timing. And after she'd turned down the music she'd reminded him that he wouldn't need her after his son was born because she knew he would be a mechanic, just like his father and his grandfather before him, and not a hunter even though they ran in both families.

Their son would be a regular kid who lived in a nice little house with a yard where he would chase after baseballs and a goofy Golden Retriever named Sammy. She was also sure he would also grow up to be as handsome and as kind and considerate as his daddy and that the two of them were strong enough to keep him safe and sound and that they would all live happily ever after.

Dean barked out a harsh bitter laugh. No one is safe he whispered and, for the first time in his life, he truly believed it. Nobody was safe. He now knew that no spell, no hex bag, no amulet, no prayer, no panic room, no gun, no knife, no amount of money, no amount of medical training, nothing in heaven or on earth could keep you safe or save you and he effortlessly slipped back into the anger phase of the grieving process.

He turned away before he could punch out another window and looked down at his hands. He flexed his fingers painfully. They were cut, bruised and battered and he hoped he hadn't taken his anger out on Sam or on Bobby. They were only trying to help but he wanted neither tired expressions of condolence, no matter how well intended, nor pity. He just wanted the pain to stop and the guilt to go away.

And he wanted answers to his questions. Why had she died? Why hadn't they known she was in danger? Why had they just said it was normal and dismissed his concerns and fears so cavalierly? Why had he had to kiss her one last time before putting her in a hole in the ground and covering her with six feet of cold, wet earth? He also wanted to know why her and not him?

snsnsnsn

Bobby Singer sat in an old rocking chair recently retrieved from the attic. His movements back and forth comforted the infant he held in his arms and, looking down, he dipped his head and planted a kiss on the dark downy hair that covered the baby's head.

Sam laughed softly as he came into the room and caught him. "Busted, Bobby."

Bobby looked up with a scowl and asked in a loud stage whisper, "What'd ya' think? I eat 'em for breakfast?"

Startled, the baby's eyes opened then closed, once, twice, three times as he drifted back to sleep.

Sam came up to stand behind the two of them and, as he stared down at the bundle in Bobby's arms, he smiled in wonder. In his wildest dreams he never though he'd ever see another Winchester son or daughter for that matter. He thought the Winchester and Campbell lines would probably both end with him and Dean and he was right until a certain blue-eyed blonde came into their lives.

John Winchester, at one time so sure that he would kill the yellow eyed demon and that their lives would return to normal, had told his boys that when they headed out on their own to take 'someone from home'. Take a girl from the same place you were from, willing to go in the same direction you were going. It was something his father had told him when he'd enlisted in the Army and when he'd come back, John had taken Mary Campbell, a girl from his hometown, as his wife. They had started his new life and it had been a happy life...for a while.

Years later Dean Winchester had finally found his 'someone from home' in a bar in Cincinnati, Ohio, not far from Union, Kentucky and although she was not from Lawrence, Kansas or from Kansas at all, she was a hunter just like Dean and she was his brother's savior. She had pulled him from the edge of the abyss as surely as Castiel had pulled him from the pit and, although Dean would never forget his time spent there, she eventually helped him realize it was okay to forgive, to forgive others and, above all, to forgive yourself.

Over the following months she'd made a home for him and plans for their future together and Dean had finally started to allow himself to be happy. But in a matter of hours his girl was gone, along with his joy, and she would have hated it with all her heart to see him back where she had first found him...balanced on the edge of the abyss.

But for now there was no reaching Dean so Sam and Bobby, together, took on the daunting task of caring for the son while the father raged against heaven and hell.


	2. Chapter 2

One Year Ago

They drove most of the eighteen miles from Union, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio in virtual silence. Sam was behind the wheel of the Impala while Dean sat, never uttering a single word, eyes closed, face turned toward the passenger side window. After his tear-filled heartfelt confession about his time in hell he thought his revelations, as hard as they were for him to admit to, would be cathartic but he didn't feel calm and comforted. He felt nauseous.

"Pull over, Sammy!" Dean said urgently and Sam swerved off the highway and onto the shoulder just in time for Dean to open the door and hit the ground running.

As his brother vomited into the weeds Sam turned the car engine off and opened his door but stayed seated in the driver's seat. His and Dean's lifelong relationship had changed yet again, the two of them now slipping further down the slippery slope and he had no idea what to say to him or even how he felt about his confession. In his minds eye he pictured himself patting Dean on the shoulder while he uttered inane "There, there's" giving him lip service about how everything was going to be all right. Hell, Sam didn't even know if they were going to make it through the next fifteen minutes without consequence, let alone what was left of their cursed lives.

It was all too much for him to comprehend, demons with humanity and graceless angels, angels who struck down first and asked questions later, demons who could best an angel mano y mano, not to mention all the other things hiding in closets and under beds and they were supposed to fight them all. "God damn it," he cursed and hit his hand against the steering wheel, then laughed half-assed, "God damn it indeed." This was God's doing, all of it, and Sam wondered if He even knew what in the hell was going on with all of His creations and fuck the 'works in mysterious ways' because this was seriously insane.

The sounds of Dean's wretchedness brought Sam out of his reverie and out of the car and over to the patch of ditch weed where Dean knelt, his hands on his thighs, trying pathetically to breath through his now dry heaves. Sam held out a handful of tissues and Dean took them with a wry look and trembling hand and was pretty sure he was done. There wasn't anything left for him to throw up except maybe his stomach lining.

With Sam's help Dean got back on his feet and back to the Impala. He reached into the back seat and produced a half empty fifth of Jim Beam he took a slug and swished out his mouth then spit it out. He took another sip and swallowed it waiting to see if he could hold it down before finally getting back into the passenger seat. They drove on, the silence drawn out and deafening and broken only by a call from Bobby to tell them he was waiting for them at the Holy Grail Tavern and Grille off of Jefferson Ave. near the University of Cincinnati.

The Holy Grail, a typical sports bar and college hangout, was packed and noisy as replays of last weeks college football games, including the Bearcats' 28 to 20 win over Louisville, played out on various television sets at individual tables and above the bar. Once inside the raucous bar Sam felt a sense of familiarity and a pang of regret while Dean felt ill at ease and out of place. He knew that the coeds who looked him over like a prime cut of beef and smiled at him seductively would run screaming if they knew what he had been up to the past year.

Sensing Dean's state of mind Sam grabbed his arm and led him to a booth that had just cleared out and told him to sit while he went for beers and to find Bobby. He also suggested that, while he was just sitting there, he should try to cheer up or at least be his old lecherous, disgusting self but Dean just wanted something to eat to settle his stomach and a drink to numb the thoughts crawling around in his head.

As Sam walked away Dean spotted Bobby sitting with his back to the bar a coed standing next to him holding a long neck in one hand while her other hand touched the hunter's arm familiarly. They shared a laugh and Dean thought, you go Bobby, you old dog, and would have lifted a beer in salute to him if he had had one.

Across the bar Bobby tilted back his beer and spotted Dean and was shocked by what he saw. The boy was markedly thinner than the last time he'd seen him and dark circles rimmed his eyes, which, instead of undressing every hot girl in the bar, simply stared down at his fidgeting fingers. "There's Dean," Bobby said to his companion and nodded toward the booth and the young woman looked thoughtfully at the man who sat, head down and shoulders slumped, in the booth.

Dean looked up again and as Bobby placed his hand on the girl's back to steer her toward the booth he thought that life truly sucked ass. If she was Bobby's hook up it sucked and if the older hunter was bringing her over to meet him and Sam, like some meddling matchmaking maiden aunt, well, that sucked, too because one of Aunt Bobby's nephews was going steady with a demon and the other one had tortured souls in hell for ten years and had liked it. Now wouldn't that look good on the old resume when she brought him home to meet her parents?

Dean searched around for Sam but he was nowhere to be seen. At that moment he would have appreciated Sam's attempts to cock block him as the pretty blue-eyed blonde looked at him meaningfully instead of coquettishly. Kill me now or get me a Jack with a Jack back, he thought, and couldn't even muster up a smile for her.

"Dean, I brought someone I though you might..." Bobby started but was immediately cut off.

"Listen," Dean said and looked up at the girl, "I'm sure you're very nice but things have kinda gone to hell in a hand basket for me lately, so, I'm sorry you had to walk all the way over here from the bar but I'm really not interested."

Instead of being offended or pissed off the girl threw back her head and laughingly told him, "You're just as I pictured you. Self-centered, egotistical, snarky and way too handsome for your own good."

Dean looked to Bobby but the man just kept his mouth shut and stepped back out of the way when Sam came back to the table with four beers in hand.

"Bobby," Sam acknowledged the hunter and the girl standing with him turned and smiled up at him.

"And you must be Sammy," she said and added, "I see you did grow into your feet."

Dean's initial annoyance doubled when she called his brother Sammy. And how did she know the ginormatron had clodhoppers when he was a kid? Bobby shoved Sam into the booth and sat down next to him while Dean grabbed his beer and drank down half of it before making room for Susie Sorority to sit next to him.

Dean upended his beer and, finishing it, slammed the empty bottle down on the table and Bobby asked peevishly, "Feel better now?"

The young hunter grunted and the girl next to him had the audacity to giggle and it sounded so perfect that he silently begged for Castiel to walk through the door and smite her so that he could continue being all pissy.

Dean opened his mouth to say something else rude but Bobby held up his hand. "You might want to rethink whatever you're about to say, boy, because the foot in your mouth ain't gonna hurt near as much as my boot up your ass."

Sam took a pull on his beer and looked at Bobby wide-eyed wondering just who the girl was and why Bobby felt the need to rein Dean in. Granted his brother's rude behavior would have been confusing to anyone who didn't know what he'd been through in the past week but Bobby usually let them make complete asses of themselves if there was no stopping them and he listened intently as Bobby explained.

"When you called about your angel loosing her grace," he told them, "I was working a job in upstate New York. A werewolf thing and I ran across this little lady." Bobby just knew that Dean was going to say something really stupid again and he held up his hand and added, "And I guess there is symmetry in the cosmos because I found your Grace."

Neither of them reacted to Bobby's cryptic comment until Dean turned to look at the girl's smiling face and completely dumbfounded whispered, "Grace? Grace Downey? Jewels' Grace?"


	3. Chapter 3

Dean's face paled and his smile verged on sickly as he continued to stare at her in disbelief. The girl he had only known through a photograph and his connection to one of the great loves of his life, her mother Jewels, sat next to him. The girl he dreamed of sitting next to on the beach when he was a kid and, when he was a lonely adolescent, the girl he had pretended was his girlfriend sat next to him and he couldn't say a word.

When he was ten Jewels Downey had made a deal with him. He was to go on asking God to keep Sammy and his dad safe and when all the bad stuff was over she and her daughter would wait for him on the beach in some place called Cape Cod. But it might well have been the moon because even though he bargained with God for a long, long time the bad things just kept coming. Azazel took Grace, Jewels disappeared off the face of the earth, John died to save him, he traded his soul to save Sammy and he died, went to hell and was resurrected. Nope, he thought, the shit just keeps on coming and, wrought with emotion, he turned away from her and only with only his shaking hands belying his calm exterior.

Sam glanced at Dean and saw his jaw working furiously and knew it was something other than anger he was trying to keep under control. Grace seemed content to just let him sit in silence, to sort through his emotions, while she talked to him and Bobby. The waitress brought more beers and Sam waited for her to leave before he ventured, "Werewolves, Grace?"

"Not something I should bring up on a first date?" she asked with a wink.

"Maybe never," he laughed and took a swallow of his beer.

"Yeah, my mom told me it was probably best if I didn't share my "hobby" with any potential boyfriends or friends or guidance counselors."

"How is your mom?" Sam asked and the look of sympathy that crossed her face for his unintentional gaff said it all. He'd asked the loaded question and knew immediately that Jewels Downey was dead. "Jesus, Bobby, you could've told me," he said testily to the man seated next to him but Bobby just shrugged.

He knew that Grace had come to terms with her mother's death years before and that she now only felt consideration for Sam, who had broached the subject, and compassion for Dean, who sat next to her as still as death.

"I'm sorry," Sam sighed and a few moments later added, "Bobby probably told you about our dad."

Bobby had shared that much with her and she said, "Yeah, he told me the most beautiful story about a father's loving sacrifice for his son." She didn't dare look at Dean and added, "And I cried like a baby."

Bobby snorted as he remembered the girl's tears for people she knew only through her mother's memories. Her mother had loved them well so John's death had hit her kind of hard and he warned Sam and Dean, "You boys need to tread lightly. Weepin' Wanda here is pretty tender hearted...except when it comes to werewolves."

"Why'd you pick them to hunt?" Sam wanted to know, "They're big, slobbery and stink to high heaven most of the time."

"I do it for my dad...and my mom...but mostly for him."

"Is that how your mom..." Sam ventured again.

"Drunk driver," Grace told him.

The irony of it all struck Dean hard and he was completely overwhelmed and could very well be sick again if he didn't get some air.

Grace heard his sharp intake of breath and turned to him and saw the panic in his eyes. She immediately stood up to let him out and watched as he cut his way through the crowd and disappeared through the door.

"I'd better go," Sam started but Bobby stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You'd best let him alone for awhile," he suggested and grabbed a passing waitress and ordered another round.

Grace sat back down across from the two of them and sighed, "I guess this must be hard for him."

"Emotional overload, big time," Sam ventured and said more to Bobby than to Grace, "He told me what he did in..." Sam didn't know how much Bobby had told Grace about him and Dean but in any case he decided to drop the subject of hell.

Bobby got the message and knew Dean had finally shared the secrets that had been eating him alive. He'd filled Grace in a little on John and his sons but he hadn't felt it his place to give her any more that a cursory glance into their lives. He would leave it up to Dean to tell Grace Downey what, if anything, he wanted her to know.


	4. Chapter 4

Grace Downey gave Dean Winchester exactly thirty minutes before she and Sam went to look for him. Sam suggested they try some of the sleazier bars off the main drag and they eventually found him in the Rivera Bar nursing a Johnny Walker straight and, as if he had fully expected her to find him, he never even bothered to look up when she told Sam she'd be okay and, when he left, sat down on the stool on his left.

The bartender drifted over and Grace ordered Maker's Mark neat and as he poured her drink he thought she seemed too young to be a bourbon drinker and, when she smiled at him, too good looking to be wasting her time on the miserable, brooding guy sitting next to her at the bar.

He set the drink in front of her and when she reached for her purse the mook told him to put it on his tab. At least he was a gentleman even if his eyes had that look of a soldier too long at war, something he saw quite a bit in his line of work. The bartender shrugged his shoulders and hoped she knew what she was doing and moved on to wait on other costumers.

Taking a sip of her drink then a deep breath, Grace turned to Dean and stuck out her hand, "Hi, I'm Grace Downey."

Dean looked at her morosely but took her proffered hand. It was small and soft and her fingers were cold and he wanted to chafe them between his hands to warm them up. He released her hand instead and and she picked up her drink again.

"I feel like I know you, like I've known you all my life," she told him, "After Azazel..." Just saying his name caused her to falter momentarily but she forged ahead, "My mom used to talk about you a lot."

Dean continued to just sit and calmly sip his whiskey so she went on, "She said you were a tough nut but that you had a heart bigger than anyone she'd ever met. She also said that you were clever and smart and that sometimes she suspected that you were really a forty year old midget."

Dean cracked a smile and finally turned to look at her. She looked so much like her mother that it was amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time and when she smiled at him her eyes were clear, without guile, or clouded with regret. He suspected she was the best of both Jewels and Ross Downey rolled up into one special package...even after all she'd been through. He wished he could be more like her but he was too damaged and he turned away from her before she could see it in his eyes.

But Grace didn't see anything in his eyes but exhaustion and pain and told him, "She also said that if love and loyalty were measured in money you'd be Donald Trump but with much better hair." He eyed her skeptically until she told him that she added the part about Donald Trump...and the hair. "Okay, but she did say you were fiercely loyal and protective and that you loved your dad and the 'little goober' with all of your heart but that you had issues with God and churches and angels and well, God."

Girl, if you only knew, he wanted to tell her but he kept his peace. Better to let her go on thinking he was the pint-sized, Boy Scout in dirty sneakers Jewels remembered.

But Grace took his silence personally and cleared her throat nervously as she gathered her purse close to her chest and, ready to leave, said to him, "I was hesitant when Bobby suggested I come and meet you and Sam but he was so sure you'd want to know about mom and..."

"I do want to know about her", Dean interrupted and reached for her cold hand again, "I want to know everything about her but I need you to honestly answer one question for me. It's something I need to know first"

She smiled at the earnest expression on his face and said, "Sure, whatever you want to know I'll tell you if I can."

"Did your mom...did she blame my dad...or me...for what happened to you?" he asked stiltedly.

Hearing his question Grace wondered just how much baggage this man had been carrying around for the last twenty years and how much unnecessary guilt he'd packed into those heavy suitcases? "Oh, Dean, of course she didn't blame you or your dad," Grace assured him as she dropped her purse back onto the bar. She took both of his hands in hers and said, "She cared very much for your father and I know she loved you...and the goober, too."

Dean pulled his hand from hers and turned to look at his reflection in the bar mirror. He rested his forearms on the dark wood and wondered how much longer he could keep it together.

"I only wish she'd had the chance to see you again," Grace continued, "But she held you in her heart and I bet she prayed for you every day because, like she always told me, it couldn't hurt and..."

"A deal's a deal," Dean finished with her. Hoping to keep the tears in check he bit the inside of his mouth but when Grace leaned to her right and playfully pushed him with her shoulder, something her mother always did, he dropped his head and just let them fall.

Grace slipped a comforting arm around his quaking shoulders and gently rubbed his arm and he wanted to push her away. He also wanted to punch the guy sitting next to him in the nose for staring after which he would head for the solitude of the Impala and turn up AC/DC as loud as it would go. But he found that he didn't have the strength to move or the desire to be alone.

Grabbing some cocktail napkins he wiped his eyes and runny nose and glared so hard at Gawky McGawkerson that the man threw a few bills onto the bar and disappeared leaving the two of them alone at the bar.

"I prayed for her, for you to be safe. I kept my part of the deal but God reneged," Dean insisted and stared at her reflection in the back bar glass.

Grace begged to differ and told him, "But God did keep his part of the deal."

She was defending a benevolent God he no longer believed in and Dean demanded that she tell him how God had kept any part of the bargain when her mother was dead, when his own father was dead.

But Grace just said serenely, "She found me. When I was so lost in Azazel's evil that I thought no one would ever find me again, my mother found me."


	5. Chapter 5

Grace Downey looked at Dean Winchester, really looked into his eyes and saw that he was having a hard time believing her or letting go of any of the guilt he so tenaciously clung to and when he finally asked her, as she knew he would, she gave him an abbreviated, sanitized version of the ten years she had spent in the company of a demon.

Azazel had first come to her when she was seven years old in the guise of a policeman. He told her that her grandparents had been killed in a terrible accident and that she needed to go with him to find her mother. But she hadn't seen her mother again for ten long years. In that time, Azazel had been both mother and father to her and when she turned sixteen, in his words, he became her lover. The ordeal became her true test of faith, a test she had almost failed, had failed in some people's eyes and Grace, sure that she didn't want someone who had been so dear to her mother to ever look at her the way others had, would keep the details of her past hidden away where it could never hurt him.

Dean reached into his pocket and threw two twenties on the bar. He never said a word and, with a grim, determined look on his face, he stood up and picked up Grace's purse. She stood and he placed a gentle hand on the small of her back and steered her toward the door and out into the early winter night.

Out on the sidewalk Grace turned to take her purse and to say goodbye to him but when a single tear slipped from his eye she impulsively leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Dean swiped angrily at the tears that continued to leak from his reddened eyes and asked, "What was that for?"

She told him in a quiet voice with no anger or bitterness in it, "For killing him."

She meant the yellow-eyed demon and Dean said, his words rife with bitterness and sorrow, "It was the least I could do," and as he looked at her he could see it in her eyes, Grace Downey was pissed.

She wasn't pissed at him but angry for the little boy who had lost so much since evil had first touched his life and she was irate for the little girl who had lost her childhood and innocence all because their fathers had seen evil up close and had tried to destroy it and because her mother had been willing to help a stranger finish the job.

The legacy of pain and sorrow that had been handed down to them had not come from grandparents or parents or from siblings but from Satan himself and through the works of his minions set free to roam the earth. They had had no choice but to suffer the pain and live with the sorrow but Grace refused to accept the legacy as her own or to pass it down. She was determined that Dean Winchester, no matter the choices he had made in the past or the choices he would make in the future, should not accept it either.

"You mean after all that's happened? All the horrible things you couldn't stop or keep from happening once they'd begun? All the things you caused to happen? All the terrible things you've done?" Her voice was loaded with sarcasm and Dean flinched as if she'd physically punched him when she added, "Who died and left you his crown of thorns?"

Grace's face remained passive although she wanted to scream at him. "Don't put this bullshit on your shoulders. Don't you dare accept responsibility for any of it. Don't you lie down like a dog that's been beaten. Fight back!" and anger flared briefly in his eyes.

Dean didn't think for a minute that he was omnipotent. He just thought he should have done a better job of...everything and even though Grace probably knew a lot about hell on earth, she didn't know about Hell or anything about him and he coldly told her so and turned to walk back to the Impala and she sighed.

Dean heard her footfalls as she followed and his anger quickly dissolved into a heavy mantel of regret, regret for the inevitable death of his teenage fantasy girl crush. Grace was in no danger herself but he knew that she would eventually hear about his stint in hell and would head for the hills as fast as her utilitarian hiking boots would carry her, wondering all the while just what her mother had been thinking. Jewels' faith in him was unfounded. He had let himself become no better than the things they hunted.

Dean reached into his pocket for his keys and realized that he still held Grace's purse clutched to his chest. That fact and not some uncontrolled desire to get to know him better was probably the reason she had followed him. He whirled on her ready to shove the traitorous brown leather bag with all it's hidden compartments and feminine secrets at her but she wasn't looking at him at all. She was looking at the sleek, black Chevrolet Impala glowing under the egress lights over the back door to one of the bars that lined the street.

"Oh, baby," she cooed and bent over to look in the window.

Dean stepped back to give her room to take a closer look and, watching her, he became even more disheartened by her immanent departure. Beside being fearless and smart and a knock out, Grace Downey apparently really appreciated his wheels. He was right for when Grace turned to him he could see it in the dim light that lit her face. She was in love.

"Do you wanna drive her?" he asked and she let out an unladylike whoop.

"Oh, you know I do," she said, her smile a mile wide.

He held up the keys and she quickly grabbed them before he could change his mind and unlocked the driver's door. She settled into the passenger seat and Dean slipped in beside her, leaned his head back and closed his eyes, content to let her just drive. He felt no need to backseat drive or to grab the dashboard to make a point the way he did when Sammy drove and the smooth rumble of the powerful engine as she sped along the Interstate, AC/DC blasting out of the speakers, was a temporary balm to his battered soul. It soothed him even when the tolling of Hell's Bells was joined by the distinctive wail of an Ohio State Police cruiser siren.

Grace calmly dug through her purse and pulled out a license while Dean flipped down the driver's visor and pulled out the car's registration. He handed it to Grace who passed them both out the window and into the beefy waiting hand of the state trooper.

"Do you know how fast you were going," the cop started as he glanced at the laminated rectangle then back into Grace's baby blues, "Ms Jett?"

"I had the speedo pegged," she admitted, "How fast?" She squealed when he told her in excess of 120 mph while Dean just groaned and covered his face with his hands. The cop heard the noise and leaned in to take a look but Grace straightened up in her seat effectively blocking his view.

"Stay in the vehicle, please," the trooper ordered and then retreated back to his cruiser.

"Let me guess," Dean snorted, "Joan Jett."

"Mom told me about Robert Plant. I bow to your genius," she said apparently unconcerned with the validity of her bogus driver's license.

"I just want to warn you that there could be a problem if Super Trooper there recognizes me."

"It's just a speeding ticket. No probable cause to hassle you."

"Fifty five plus over the speed limit's probably hassle worthy."

The trooper came back to stand next to the car and Dean sat back trying to disappear into the seat. He grimaced when he heard the cop ask, "Who's your passenger?"

Grace stuck her head out the window and crooked her finger. The officer leaned down and looked into her eyes and couldn't help but smile.

"Husband," Grace admitted then added in a stage whisper with a wink and a coy smile, "but not mine."

The cop's eyes widened and he smiled lasciviously. He was evidently a full-fledged member of the philandering husband club and ready to let Dean have a pass. The trooper cleared his throat and said, "Everything seems to check out so I'm just gonna give you a warning...this time." He handed the slip of paper to Grace and Dean almost laughed out loud. If he'd been driving he'd have already been spread legged, face down on the trunk of the Impala, getting his hands cuffed behind him.

"Thank you so much for your generosity," Grace gushed, "and for your ah,...discretion."

"My pleasure, ma'am," the trooper said and touched the brim of his hat. He stepped back and watch as Grace pulled back out onto the highway.

She drove like a little old lady until they were out of sight and then picked up speed intent on pegging her again but Dean told her to pull into an upcoming rest stop. She did as she was told and knew her driving privileges were most likely being revoked as they pulled into a parking space in an unlighted part of the lot. She killed the engine.

"That was too damn close, Grace" Dean told her peevishly "And why is it that when a cop pulls over a woman with a pretty face and great tits, she never gets written up?"

"Because men are pigs?" she suggested and added, "And by the way, I was fully prepared to show him some boobage if he'd asked you to step out of the car."

Dean shook his head and laughed. He admired her ingenuity and thanked her for her generosity.


	6. Chapter 6

The dulcet screams of Bon Scott had been quieted along with the Chevy's powerful engine and Grace and Dean sat in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, at least not for Grace. She was used to things being relatively quiet. Grace was used to being alone; free to go wherever, whenever, responsible for and accountable to no one but herself but when she saw Dean reach for the half empty fifth of Jack Daniels that was tucked away in the glove compartment and tilt it back to take a few swallows she had the feeling that silence and solitude was the last things he wanted or needed at that point in the evening or in his life.

He held out the bottle to her but she shook her head. For years there had been similar bottles stashed in her various vehicles along with fully stocked liquor cabinets at home but she had learned to live with the sound of the screams in her head, learned to block out the nightmarish images that assailed her even in her waking hours and now, when she felt the voices were becoming a little too loud and the images a little too vivid, she went out and killed something really, really bad.

The silence stretched out before them and Dean's hands trembled slightly as he continued to calmly sip his whiskey when what he really wanted to do was to throw the bottle against the windshield and cover his ears and scream for 'them' to shut the fuck up. He resisted the urge and stayed quiet because the last thing he wanted to do was to let Grace know just how close he was to freaking out and eating his own gun.

But Grace had only to look into his eyes to see it. She shifted in the seat and turned toward Dean resting her arm on the seatback and said, "This is definitely a step up from a Volkswagen bug."

Dean laughed softly but didn't trust himself to say anything about the bright orange Beetle Grace's mother had given him years ago. Thinking of Jewels' senseless death hurt his head and his heart and he was loath to cry in front of Grace...again. Maybe they should just go back; him to the motel and Grace back to...wherever...but for the moment he simply wanted to stop. To stop thinking, to stop caring, to stop feeling and to just...stop.

"Nineteen sixty-seven Chevrolet Impala two-door," Grace's voice was full of reverence as she glanced into the back seat where she spotted another half empty bottle. "If this back seat could talk, huh?"

Dean shrugged and assured her, "You'd loose all respect for me...and Sammy, too, I'm guessing and maybe even for my dad." Grace smiled at him and he felt safe enough to tell her, "I banged an angel back there not two days ago."

"That's nice," Grace said dispassionately and Dean, for some strange reason, felt he needed to explain.

"No, really. The angel Bobby was talking about."

Grace looked at him, not as if he were insane, but curiously. "How was it?" she asked and was surprised when he told her.

"One of my higher lows."

She thought it would have been glorious but Bobby had explained that the angel Dean referred to had 'lost' her grace and wanting to hear more she offered, "I'm listening."

"I thought it would make me feel better," Dean admitted and Grace watched as he took another pull on the bottle and turned to stare out into the darkness.

"You would think so," she agreed sympathetically and he turned back to stare at her.

"It didn't. Even after she told me I didn't have to go through...this...alone and I spilled my guts to Sammy, I still wish I was dead."

"Whatever 'this' is," Grace started and knew that in their line of work 'this' could be really, really ugly but that God could bear the weight of it, "you don't have to carry it all alone."

"No? I told Sammy everything I thought I could without making him hate me, hell, without making me hate myself any more than I already do and in the end he couldn't even speak. He didn't have the words."

"Sometimes words aren't nearly enough...but just being there is."

Dean thought about it for a moment and realized that Sam's silence may simply have been a loss for words and not a silent condemnation and, despite his silent vow to never cry again in front of her, tears slipped down his cheeks and this time it broke her heart. Grace scooted over closer to him and, resisting the urge to push her away, he let her wrap her arms around him. She was warm and smelled so good and she didn't seem to want anything but to comfort him and it felt so good that he let her hold him until his self-loathing reared its ugly head and he felt he didn't deserve it. He pulled away and rested his head back against the seat and whispered, "God, I'm so tired."

"Then just rest," she suggested, "I'll drive us back and I promise to keep it under a hundred and twenty."

"I'd just like to stay here for a little while...if you don't mind."The rest area was deserted and dark and strangely calming and Dean wondered if it was a trap. But the far off lights of the restrooms continued to shine brightly; never flickering once and the temperature didn't suddenly drop 40 degrees followed by a rolling fog and he began to relax enough to put down the bottle.

They sat in companionable silence once more and Grace waited patiently for him to speak again, to open up some more while Dean waited for her to insist that they go back to the city. But she just sat, breathing evenly, steadily despite his close proximity to her and her rapidly beating heart. He was so handsome that it was almost sinful and she suspected he knew full well how to use his looks to his advantage...or had until very recently. Something had happened to him, something had screwed everything up including the one constant in his life, sex, meaningless or otherwise. Dean Winchester had slept with an angel and after all was said and done it had been a bummer.

"So how much did Bobby tell you?" Dean suddenly asked.

His voice was edged with anger so Grace didn't play dumb or act coy, not that she ever would have. She told him that Bobby hadn't told her anything but that over the years, especially the last few months, she'd heard 'things'.

Dean threw up his defenses and grabbed the bottle again.

"I heard you made a deal with a demon," Grace stated calmly enough and his hand stilled briefly before tilting the whiskey bottle back again, "and that you went to hell. But that with God's help you're back."

He was back alright. Six months ago his body was moldering in a secret grave while his soul was cast into hell to suffer for eternity. He'd held out for three months, a mere thirty years in hell where time flew when you were having fun, before turning from tortured to torturer, from sacrificial lamb to the guy who turned the spit. He'd spent another month or ten hell-years there before Castiel yanked him out and deposited him back in the land of the living.

Dean tilted up the bottle and the remaining liquid slid effortlessly down his throat and he wondered if Grace would really believe any of it if he told her his story? He had a hard time believing it himself sometimes. He might have been able to pass it off as a really, really bad dream if not for the scars on his arm and his infrequent visits from Castiel, Uriel and his hellfire and brimstone mentor Alistair to remind him of its reality.

Recapping the empty bottle Dean tossed it over his shoulder and said testily, "If it was God he sure took his sweet ass time getting me out of there."

"But you did get out and now you feel like maybe somebody's made a mistake." Her voice was so calm that he knew she didn't have any idea what he'd gone through, what he was still going through, and he would have left well enough alone but she said softly, "Tell me what you did."


	7. Chapter 7

Where do I begin? Dean wondered and his heart started to pound. He opened his mouth as if he were really going to tell her all about the twisted fuck stick he'd become but, as hard as he tried to stop them, the words started to tumble out. At first they were only disjointed phrases that eventually turned into a halting and haunting narrative, much like Dante's sojourn but without the stops in Heaven or Purgatory. Dean Winchester had gone straight to Hell.

Once he got going his words spewed out like projectile vomit as he described the seemingly never-ending cycle of torture. His body ripped and shredded and carved to the bone like a Thanksgiving turkey only to be miraculously restored so the cycle could begin again. Grace listened intently, afraid to look at him, afraid he would stop.

Dean did pause and scrubbed his face with trembling hands. He turned to Grace, who still sat close to him but with eyes staring straight ahead into the darkness. She was deathly quiet and barely breathing and she hadn't moved. She hadn't recoiled in disgust but he was just getting to the good part, the last ten years of his stint in hell, the part that would probably send her packing.

"I had a handler, Alistair, and after thirty years of the same old shit he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. If I picked up the knives, the axes, the saws, the tools of the trade; if I surveyed the throngs of teeming souls and stuck out my finger and selected one; if I started the torture, he would pull the hooks from my body, let me down off the chains and by God, I took him up on his offer. I said yes."

Dean reached for the half empty bottle in the back seat and downed all of it in one fell swoop in hopes that it would make him to pass out cold. But the adrenalin in his system masked the effects of the whiskey and he barely had a buzz...or so he thought.

Grace asked him a question and it was at that point that he was positive he was dead drunk.

"Why did you wait so long?"

"What?"

"Why did you wait so long to end your suffering, to do God's will?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Dean," she said, her voice shaking with emotion, "have you ever been possessed by a demon?"

When he shook his head she told him, "I have and there isn't a more loathsome entity to be found...anywhere. And for you to spend one second of regret or shed one single, solitary tear for what you did, what you had to do to stop your pain, to protect your humanity, is just plain asinine!"

He looked in her direction. She still faced forward her profile barely visible in the dark and with her sudden outburst, he half expected her to turn in his direction and stare at him with yellow eyes and shout "Psych!" Instead she just kept berating him and non too gently.

"It may take years, maybe even centuries to strip away their humanity but humanity doesn't equate to goodness. Those souls you tortured were sent to hell for reasons you and I can't even begin to fathom."

"Then why was I there?" he asked cautiously and she turned to him.

Her eyes didn't shine yellow in the faint light but were a beautiful shade of blue. They were non-judgemantal and filled with compassion and she spoke to him in a gentle voice.

"Because you chose to be there," she said and she burst into tears.

Dean reached for the girl and enfolded her in his arms and when she didn't push him away he rested his chin on the top of her head. She cried hard into his neck and he wondered if there was any more whiskey left in the car. Grace Downey had gone into meltdown mode and could probably use a stiff one when she was done.

She cried for quite a long time. Her tears ebbed and he thought that she had it under control but them she thought of Dean's sacrifice and they flowed again. Bobby had warned them. Tonight Weeping Wanda was in rare form and Grace cried until she hyperventilated and her sobs finally turned to very loud hiccups.

Dean leaned forward; Grace still clutched to his chest and opened the glove compartment. He fished around with one hand until he came up with some old napkins and handed them to her. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose noisily and, afraid to look him in the eye for fear of starting all over again, she apologized profusely through her hiccups for being such a girl.

He accepted her apology with a quiet laugh and apologized to her for finishing off the last of the whiskey. Grace just shrugged and said it was probably for the best because she was a maudlin drunk and he laughed again.

Silence descended on the car broken only by a residual sniffle or an errant hiccup and for now the screams in his head were not completely gone but more subdued than they had been since Castiel had resurrected him. Grace was right; it wasn't a twist of fate or some clerical error made by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates that sent people's souls to hell, it was the choices they made.

God didn't waste hell on the casual or the occasional sinner and Lucifer wanted only the best. Dean should have realized it the moment he descended into the depths when, in fear and confusion, they'd pounced on him tearing him limb from limb. He didn't belong in hell and they were scared to death of him. Dean had had no choice but to accept his lot until it had become unbearable and Alistair had taken him under his crooked, torn, leathery wing.

God had evidently forgiven him his deal because he was now topside and with Grace's help maybe he could start to forgive himself.


	8. Chapter 8

With a final hiccup and one good nose blow Grace leaned back in the seat. It was late and she was exhausted but Dean wasn't through with her yet. He'd told her almost everything, more than he'd told his own brother, but now turn about was fair play and, although he was wary about what she might tell him, he wanted to know. "Tell me about the demon, Grace," he said, "Tell me about Azazel."

Grace didn't know if she could and she quickly went through a mental checklist of what was okay to say out loud and what she would rather take to the grave with her. "In the beginning," she began choosing her words carefully, "he was everything to me. He was all I had in the way of a mother and a father and he took care of me in his own fashion, changing homes and unwilling hosts like dirty socks. He finally left me with an older couple who, in fear for their very lives, took extremely good care of me while Azazel did whatever it is that busy demons do."

"Couldn't they have just abandoned you?"

"Oh, they would have in a minute...if they'd dared. But first I killed their cat and then I killed their dog and then there was the man's terrible accident."

Grace spoke so dispassionately about the animal mutilation and attempted murder that Dean whispered Christo under his breath and she stared hard at him. "Sorry," he whispered.

She snickered and patted his hand like he was an idiot. "I was only eight and I couldn't help myself but I knew it wasn't my fault. Someone was inside of me. A little girl who kept her hand over my mouth so I couldn't scream but, when she was happy, laughter came bubbling right out of my mouth. She liked killing things...especially animals."

"That is so fucked up," Dean said to no one in particular.

Grace agreed wholeheartedly. "I'll never forget the look on that poor woman's face. She and her husband were so afraid of me, of us, that I felt sorry for them. I tried so hard to be good but with Lilith riding shotgun it was impossible."

He should have known it was the fucking bitch and asked passionately, "Do you want me to kill her? I'll kill her for you right now!"

Grace laughed and told him yes but that he should probably wait until it got light out before he charged off to exact his retribution. And besides she had more to tell him, a lot more. "Lilith never got any older but I did and when my body matured Daddy Dearest came home. He let Lilith go free and soon after that my mother found me."

Dean glanced to his left waiting for Grace to fill in the Grand Canyon of gaps but apparently she was done with her narrative.

"That's it?" he wanted to know and she, instead of lying outright to him, just nodded her head.

"Azazel let you go? Just like that?"

"My mom fought him tooth and nail, brought a real life shaman with her, a spirit walker who kept him occupied long enough for us to get away. But by then I was really, really sick and I know he was pretty much done with me. Mom and I lived with the Apache on the San Carlos reservation until she died. Since then it's just been me and the werewolves."

"No boyfriends?" Dean asked her trying not to sound too much like he was fishing.

Grace just snorted derisively and said, "I'm out in the field for so long that it's hard to tell who's legs are hairier, mine or the lichens. And what guy can resist that, huh?"

Dean laughed and thought, that as far as he was concerned, she cleaned up 'real good'.

Grace stretched her stiff legs out before her and slid further down in the seat trying to get comfortable. Dean reached for her and pulled her closer to him and she settled into the crook of his arm and laid her weary head against him.

"If I had any whiskey left, Downey, we could drink a toast to crappy childhoods." His voice was deep and rumbled in his chest and comforted her.

"To crappy childhoods, Winchester," Grace said raising her arm in an imaginary toast, "And to my hero, the bad ass who took out Azazel."

snsnsnsnsn

The Impala pulled into the parking lot of the Terrace Hotel and Grace wheeled her into a spot between Bobby's Chevelle and her own black, ¾ ton Ford Duely. The two of them got out and, as Sam watched from the hotel's doorway, Grace gave Dean a brotherly hug and got into her truck.

Sam shook his head and wondered what had gone wrong. Surely there had been some chemistry between the two of them or at least on Dean's part because one, she was a female, two, she was hot, three, she was a female, four, she was a hunter and one through four again.

As Grace drove off Dean just waved and called out to her to 'watch her six' like she was an old Army buddy or something. He walked over to where Sam and Bobby stood, the younger Winchester clearly wondering if his brother had lost his touch...along with his mind.

"She's leaving? Just like that?"

"She has a job waiting. She said to tell you both good bye."

"And..." Sam prompted.

"And good luck?" Dean added.

"And..."

"And what, Sammy?" Dean finally said in disgust, "I don't bag and tag 'em all."

"Since when?"

"Since I decided it wouldn't be such a good idea to get involved with a...a..."

"A werewolf hunter?" Sam finished.

Bobby coughed and Dean was pretty sure he heard the word 'bullshit'.

"I hear they're out in the field most of the time," he said by way of a bullshit explanation of Grace's aversion to romance, "and apparently they don't ever shave their legs."

Sam picked up his backpack and slapped Dean on the back. "She shut you down, didn't she?"

"Oh, yeah," Dean said with a resigned smile. He and Grace had only talked but the fact that she supported his decisions...all of them...and hadn't run screaming into the night gave him hope...whether it was false or not.


	9. Chapter 9

December 10th, 2008, 7th Floor, Emily Morgan Hotel, San Antonio, Texas

"Hi Grace, this is Dean Winchester."

"Well, howdy there, stranger."

"I just wanted to call you and let you know that I think it's a bad idea for us to talk on the phone."

"You mean we should speak in person? I'm in Vancouver. Where are you?"

"Sam and I are in San Antonio...in Texas."

"I know where San Antonio is."

"We're staying at the Emily Morgan Hotel...more paranormal activity than usual."

"Say hello to the Yellow Rose for me."

"Yeah, okay...and no, I don't think it's a good idea for us to speak in person. You know, what we do isn't normal and neither of us can expect to have any kind of a regular relationship...with anybody. You know, with Lilith and werewolves and...you know."

"I do indeed. Even speaking on the phone can get kind of dicey. And I agree completely about...relationships."

"You do?"

"Completely. I've already told you about my boyfriends."

"That you haven't had one, ever. And you want to keep it that way?"

"Works for me."

"Good, then it's settled."

"Okay, then I guess this is goodbye."

"Dean, I didn't even need to hear her side to know that that was the most retarded conversation you've ever had."

"What? She agreed with me...completely."

"And you couldn't have gotten the same result just by **not** calling her?"

"I just wanted to make sure she wasn't pining away for me, you know, unrequited love."

"I can't believe she didn't just hang up on you."

"She kinda did."

December 15th, 2008, Stuckey's, I-40 Exit 321, 8 Miles West of Tucumcari, NM

"Hi, Grace."

"Hi, Dean."

"You knew it was me?"

"Caller ID."

"Yeah, right, anyway, I just called to let you know that The Thing is a total rip-off. Don't bother."

"That so?"

"Sam was really disappointed."

"The poor baby."

"Yeah, he's easily amused and he loves him some Pecan Log."

"How'd the haunted hotel go?"

"Well, it wasn't the Yellow Rose, just your everyday, run of the mill, vengeful spirit trying to find its way into the light."

"Did you help it along?"

"Yeah, but not with any of that Ghost Whisperer bullshit. The only light we lead 'em to is a bone bonfire. How about you?"

"Still in Vancouver. There's a certain television producer slash writer slash director slash showrunner I've been keeping my eye on. Some show about the supernatural."

"Sounds like a real nasty dude. You'll be careful, won't you, Grace?"

"I always am. Where are you and Sammy headed next?"

"Back to Sioux Falls."

"You tell Bobby "Hi" for me."

"Will do."

"Yet another retarded conversation. I'm surprised she even picks up."

"Me, too but do you think it means she likes me?"

December 17th, 2008, I-70/I-25 Interchange, aka The Mousetrap, Denver, Colorado

"Hi, Dean."

"Hi, Grace."

"Tell Bobby it's two cans of whole string beans, one can of mushroom soup and one bag of Funyuns. Put the beans on the bottom of the casserole dish, pour mushroom soup over and spread to cover, top with Funyuns and bake in 350 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes."

"You think it might kill us?"

"There's a pretty good chance."

"What'd she say?"

"Don't eat the green bean casserole."

December 19th, 2008, Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, speaker phone.

"Hi, this is Grace Downey. I can't come to the phone right now so please leave a message at the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. And Dean, I don't think it's a good idea for you to leave a message. If I don't know what you and Sammy are up to then I don't have to worry, especially if you went against my advice and ate Bobby's green bean casserole."

"Hi, Grace. It's me Dean and I think you're right. Next time I won't leave a message but I just wanted to let you know that Sam and I got a line on Lilith and we're headed to Connecticut. If you want, call when you get back and next time we'll pass on the casserole."

"Bobby, don't even ask."


	10. Chapter 10

Men's Locker room, Macy's Department Store, Danbury Fair Mall, Danbury, Connecticut, December 24, 2008

Dean Winchester sat down heavily on the smooth, lacquered wooden bench bolted to the floor. It spanned the width of the ten employee lockers that were in turn bolted to the wall. He unbuckled the wide, black patent leather belt and pulled the pad from beneath the red plush, fake fur trimmed jacket and tossed it to the floor.

Sam came into the room and adjusted himself for the ten thousandth time. "How can women wear these things?" he asked and pointed to the bright green tights that hugged his legs and his package so tightly.

"Beats me, Yoda, but our job here is finished." Dean fished in his red suit's oversized pockets and found Santa's little helper, a bottle of rum laced eggnog without the egg or the nog buried beneath a stash of candy canes.

"Yeah and even as evil as some of those little kids were none of 'em was Lilith."

Dean unbuttoned the jacket, scratched his stomach with a sigh, tilted the bottle back and took a swig. He then offered it to Sam. "Cheer up, Sammy. Wait'll the little bastards find out that Christo and Sarcalogos **aren't** the names of two of Santa's reindeer."

Sam snorted and took a pull on the rum bottle, set in on the bench and pulled off his elf ears. He stuffed them into his elf's hat and piled them on top of Dean's dingy white beard and sweat stained Santa hat.

Dean stripped down to his underwear, kicked the rented Santa suit into the corner and pulled his clothes from one of the lockers. As he dressed he sang absently, "You'd better watch out, you'd better not pout, you'd better not cry, I'm telling you why, 'cause Alistair is coming tonight." Stopping Dean looked over to his brother, who stood in front of his locker still dressed in his tights, and asked, "Do you think Anna really killed him?"

Sam's brow furrowed momentarily and he shrugged his shoulders. "We can only hope," he said and began the daunting task of pulling off the bilious green tights.

"I was thinkin' maybe we could just take off. If we drive straight through we can be back in Sioux Falls by this time tomorrow," Dean suggested.

"But what about this stuff?" Sam asked pointing to the elf hat and beard, "We gotta take it back to the rental place and they're not open 'til after Christmas."

Dean scooped up the pile from the bench and headed into the bathroom. Shortly thereafter Sam heard first one toilet flush then a second and finally a third. Dean came back empty handed and whistling. "All taken care of Sammy," he said with a wide smile, "Now can we go?"

Sam sighed and smiled crookedly. "Okay but first we gotta stop by Molly Darcy's for a drink. I promised Mrs. Claus I'd bring you along."

"I appreciate the thought but I'm not interested in sleeping with Candy with an i."

Sam finished lacing up his boots and stood up to grab his jacket. "Okay, but you're being faithful to a woman who hangs up on you more than she talks to you."

"She just does it to annoy me."

"She does it because you say some of the dumbest things known to man. When are you gonna smarten up and tell her how you really feel?"

"I don't 'feel' anything...except brotherly concern for her."

"Then why don't you go out with Candy with an i?" Sam wondered, "I bet she'd love to be Santa's little helper. You know, spread a little cheer, play with your toys." Sam then pulled a couple of envelopes from his locker and shoved one at his brother.

Dean tore it open and pulled out a check and huffed in disgust. "You remember when I told you that you couldn't pay me to play Santa?" Dean asked and Sam nodded, "Well, HR feels the same way. Talk about your friggin' Grinch." Dean scooped up his jacket and without a backward glance at the Santa suit or the elf outfit, he and Sam headed out into the parking lot where the Impala waited, dusted in a fresh coat of frost and snow.

Once the car was warmed up they headed to Molly Darcy's Pub where Richie Blackmore and Ian Gillan cashed their meager paychecks. Richie turned Candi down flat and they had one for the road before they headed out onto the highway.

Twenty two hours later Dean stood next to Bobby's crackling fire dressed in his boxer shorts, the vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt Sam had given him and the multicolored stripped socks, the ones with a sock for each individual toe, that Bobby had given him. He dialed Grace's number and was surprised when she picked up on the first ring.

"Hi, Grace, it's me, Dean."

"Hi, Dean." Big sniffle.

"Grace what's wrong?" Dean pressed the button to put the call on speaker.

"It's a wonderful life." Quaver in her voice.

"Yeah... I guess. If you say so, Grace."

Hiccup. "Angel..."

"Is Castiel there? Is something wrong?" Dean looked at Bobby with panic in his eyes.

"Weeping Wanda?" Bobby whispered loudly.

Dean nodded emphatically then said to Grace, "Tell me what's wrong, baby." He listened intently as Sam dragged him to the television set and pointed to the screen. George Bailey, with his daughter in his arms and wife Mary by his side, stood next to a gaily-decorated Christmas tree.

"Every time a bell rings..." Grace said with a huge sob.

"An Angel gets his wings," Dean finished for her. Switching the phone off of speaker Dean left Sam and Bobby in the living room and took the phone and his heart into the kitchen where he and Grace talked late into the night and she only hung up on him twice.


	11. Chapter 11

The Avenues, Cheyenne, Wyoming, January 24, 2009

"Hi, Grace," Dean said into his cell phone.

"Dean!" Grace replied around a mouthful of peanut butter.

From what Dean could tell she was eating something and she was apparently happy to hear from him. His heart beat a little faster and his smile grew a little wider and brushing the snow off of his shoulder and head he sat down on an old-fashioned glider swing that hung from the porch joists and began to slowly rock back and forth.

"So, how've you been, Grace?"

"Good," she said, "Really, really good."

"I bet you are," he said absently his mind totally on just how good he imagined her to be.

She caught his lascivious drift and laughed. "Smelling bacon, Winchester." She took another swipe of the chunky goodness she was eating out of the jar with her fingers.

"Is that what you're eating?"

"Man pig? Nope, choosy hunters choose Jiff."

She was eating peanut butter. Probably right out of the jar. Licking it off her fingers. His imagination took over and he almost dropped the phone.

"Are you on a job?" she asked and flopping down on the couch. She'd just come in from the field and, having showered and shaved her legs, was wearing a ridiculously expensive bra and panties set from Victoria's Secret under a Hello Kitty tee shirt.

"Kind of," he answered cryptically.

"Is Sam there with you?"

"Nah, he's at Bobby's."

Eight hours earlier

Sam started awake when his brother grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard. Neglecting to wake him for his shift Dean had evidently driven all night and they were stopped in front of Bobby's, the Impala idling and Dean telling him to, "Dude, get out."

"What?" Sam asked, thoroughly disoriented as he sat upright in his seat.

"I said grab your backpack and get out." Dean reached into the back seat and pulled Sam's overstuffed bag into the front and shoved it at him. He repeated, "Get out, Sammy."

His brother wasn't angry but seemed very determined and Sam squinted at him and asked, "What is wrong with you, dude?"

"Takin' a road trip, Sammy," he replied with a serious look.

"Oh man, hanging up on you just isn't humiliating enough," Sam said with a laugh, "You're actually gonna let her slam the door in your face."

Eight hours later

"Good," Grace said stretching out her legs, "Now you can talk dirty to me. Tell me about Ruby."

Dean wanted very much to talk dirty to Grace and although Ruby was exceedingly filthy and disgusting she wasn't what he had in mind. "Nice buzz kill, Downey."

"She's not why you called?"

"Oh, God no," he replied, "I just wanted to know if you still think it's a bad idea for us to talk in person...you know...about Ruby...and stuff."

"You're the one who thinks it's a bad idea."

"I do?" he asked stupidly.

"Hanging up on you, Winchester."

"No, wait, Grace!" Dean jumped up and slipped on a patch of ice but managed to keep his balance and the phone to his ear. He could hear her doorbell in the background.

"Hang on a minute, will you? There's someone at the door. Probably a salesman," she told him and lowered the cordless phone but not before she heard him say, "Don't buy whatever he's selling."

Grace's house was old and the ornately carved door had no peephole but she didn't worry overmuch about it because a wooden door, no matter how stout, wouldn't keep anyone or anything intent on getting in out. But to be on the safe side she picked up the loaded Kimber Desert Warrior that lay on the small table next to the door and tuning the ornate brass knob, she opened it.

She had only enough time to let out a gasp before Dean Winchester came rushing across the threshold. He pushed her back against a wall and kissed her like there was no tomorrow and picking her up in his arms he whisper "bedroom" against her lips.

"Down the hall," Grace said, her breath smelling of peanuts, her lips soft and salty on his as she playfully bit his lower lip.

He carried her to her bedroom door and she ran her tongue lightly over his lips and he closed his eyes and smacked her head on the door frame then spent the rest of the night making it up to her.

Their sex was loud, frenzied and rough while their lovemaking was quiet, unhurried and tender. The two of them ran the gamut of emotions, pent up then unbridled, until they were exhausted.

They slept spooning Grace's naked body tucked into the bend of his, his face buried in her hair, so perfect together it was as if they'd been sleeping this way for a thousand years and the dark haired young woman who stood at the foot of the bed and watched the couple as they slept frowned. She had simply walked through the unlocked front door and chewing on her lower lip nervously she sighed and whispered aloud to those unseen, "It's too late," and a chill passed through her corpse of a body.


	12. Chapter 12

Memorial Hospital of Laramie County, Cheyenne, Wyoming, March 24, 2009

"How is she? Is she gonna be all right?" If he'd asked one question he'd asked a thousand and finally he was being led into Grace's examining physician's office where he would get, in addition to answers to his questions, more questions to be answered.

"Sit down, Mr. Newsted." The doctor, white haired and way too old to still be practicing medicine, in Dean's estimation, indicated one of two chairs placed directly in front of his desk. He sat down and listened for the distinct sound of a hip fracture as the doctor wrapped his oversized lab coat around his thin, emaciated body and sat down behind his mammoth wooden desk.

"I'm Doctor Dickinson, Bruce," the doctor said as he put on his wire-rimmed spectacles, "May I call you Jason?"

Dean's eyes widened and he stammered, "What? Huh? Yeah, sure but is Grace gonna be all right?"

"She'll be fine, just a few bumps and bruises and some tenderness where the seat belt cut into her."

Thank God...and the reinforced roll cage around the cab of Grace's pickup truck. It had absorbed most of the force of the Lexus when it t-boned them. The cops told him later, as he sat in the waiting room, that the woman at the wheel never applied the brakes, had actually picked up speed before hitting them. Dean figured as much but didn't tell them that he was sure he'd seen the inky blackness of demon eyes just before the woman's head smashed through the windshield.

"And the baby is fine...for now," the doctor said as his eyes stared first at the paperwork on the top of his desk then moved up to stare critically at Dean, "I take it you're the father?"

_Baby! What baby?_ Dean wanted to shout. He also wanted to run from the room but he was rooted to the spot. Clearly flustered he did manage to squeak out, "Yeah, I...," then cleared his throat and never doubting the fact for an instant said forcefully, "Yeah, I'm the father."

Doctor Dickinson continued to stare at him and Dean grew more and more uncomfortable by the second and by the time the doctor spoke again he was ready to confess to the Kennedy assassination.

"She asked me not to mention anything to you...but I thought you might want to know," Dickinson said.

Dean swallowed hard and nodded cautiously as fear and uncertainty gripped his insides icily. What didn't she want him to know? That she was pregnant? Did she not trust him to do the right thing? Did she think he'd just turn tail and run, leave her to raise the kid, his kid, alone? He was now indignant when just seconds before the exact same thought had crossed his mind.

The doctor continued, his tone accusatory, and dropped an altogether different bomb on him when he told Dean, "Ms. Slick had what I believe was a very badly botched 'procedure'. It's a wonder she even conceived and it'll be a miracle if she carries the fetus to term. I'm assuming you saw the scaring and..."

"Listen, dude," Dean interrupted, "I don't know anything about...any of this."

Dickinson's squinty pale blue eyes pinned him to the chair. "The procedure, and I use the term loosely, was done several years ago when Grace was a teenager and I'm sure that the doctors, if in fact she even went to a hospital, told her then that having children was out of the question."

Dean had seen the scars on her abdomen, very small and very faint and figured that when Grace was good and ready she would tell him all about her scars, both physical and physiological. He now felt that the time for them to share everything was upon them, especially if they wanted to keep this baby safe, but still he wouldn't push her or threaten her...he would simply ask her.

"So why are you telling me all this?" Dean asked testily growing more and more pissed by the doctor's barely concealed contempt for him.

"I'm just saying that maybe you shouldn't have cut your high school health and human classes. Birth control's just as much the man's responsibility as the woman's."

The doctor's tone had gone from accusatory to self-righteous and Dean wanted to know, "What part of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted don't you get, you sanctimonious old prick?" Dean stood up and started to walk to the door adding, "And for your information I never missed a class where I could say 'vagina' to a teacher and get away with it."

Dean was intent on leaving the hospital and taking Grace with him and he only stopped when he heard the doctor say, "I've never seen anyone so joyous at the prospect of motherhood. It was like she radiated a divine light."

Dean turned around, gutted his indignant anger and said, "Just tell me what I need to do."

The doctor pulled out a prescription pad and started to write. "Make sure she takes one of these every day, gets regular check ups and doesn't overdo it. No gymnastics, sexual or otherwise." He glanced up and Dean looked so disappointed by his final 'no' that he took pity on the young man and added, "Intimacy is fine...just no swinging from the chandeliers."

"Thanks, doc," Dean said and listened for the snap of finger bones as he gently shook the man's cold, brittle hand. The doctor failed to let go right away and Dean looked up at him.

"She's going to need you to be there for her when it all comes crashing down."

"I'm not goin' anywhere," Dean assured him and headed to the waiting room.

Grace wondered what the doctor had told Dean as they got into a taxicab and headed back to her house. He was really, really quiet and wore a bitch face that would have put Sammy to shame so she guessed that, at the least, he'd told Dean that he was going to be a daddy and, at the most, that her insides were a mess. She sighed and waited patiently, ready for anything he could dish out.

He started out in a condescending tone. "Pregnant, Grace?"

"Hanging up on you, Winchester," she threatened.

"Grace, I'm sitting right next to you."

"I hit my head pretty hard. Do I even know you?"

"What were you thinking, Grace?"

"Hmmm, what _was_ I thinking?"

"Grace," he warned.

"I was thinking about how determined and forceful and desperate you looked coming through my door."

"Huh? Whatdayamean desperate?"

"I was thinking about how incredibly romantic you were sweeping me off my feet, carrying me to my bedroom."

"That's beside the point."

"About how you kissed the bump on my head and made it all better."

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it."

"I was thinking of how I couldn't for the life of me seem to stop the little moans that came out of me every time you kissed me."

"Be serious, Grace."

"I was thinking seriously about how surprised you were by my sexy but incredibly flimsy underwear...and how you generously offered to pay to replace them."

"Grace!"

"I was also thinking about how much I appreciated your timing and the way your tongue felt on my silky smooth legs."

"Grace, this is serious."

"And about how you were driving me over the edge with your sweet, sweet mouth and how painful it must be for you to hold back."

"Grace, I'm warning you."

"I was thinking about asking you if you had any protection but I was so crazy on fire for you that I knew I couldn't wait one second more."

"Aw, Grace."

"Then I was really, really thinking about how wonderful you felt when you were finally inside of me, filling me completely."

"Not fair, Grace."

"I was also thinking of how serious you looked covering me, staring down at me with those beautiful green eyes, those magnificent pecs of yours bulging with every thrust."

"Grace, cut it out. The driver's eating this up with a spoon."

"About how baby smooth your ass was and how your cheeks dipped in on each side just enough for me to rest the palms of my hands."

"Really not fair, Grace."

"Of how you hissed like a cat when I ran my nails down your back."

"Are you done?"

"About how you kept on going and going like the damn Energizer bunny until I was so sated that I started to cry and you so sweetly and mistakenly thought you'd done something wrong."

"Jesus, Grace."

"I was thinking of how sweet you were when you said I was beautiful even though I knew that a woman in the throes of ecstasy looks pretty hideous."

"Are you gonna be serious?"

"Of how romantic you were to hold me afterward and not say anything about your arm going to sleep."

"Last chance, Grace."

"And last but not least I was thinking about what an incredible man you are and how incredibly lucky I was to have you, if not forever, than for that one night."

Dean Winchester didn't have the words. He was done. She'd cut him off at the knees and he was done trying to find fault with Grace and with the situation. He knew without a doubt that everything was going to be all right and that the thought of having Grace Slick Joan Jett Downey as his wife and the mother of his unborn child suddenly seemed as natural to him as breathing.

They would be fine. He would make sure it. Grace would be safe and content and loved beyond all reason but he needed to know...everything. As they pulled up in front of her house and went inside he turned to her and asked her for the second time, "Tell me about the demon, Grace. Tell me about Azazel."


	13. Chapter 13

With his help Grace made her way to the couch and sat down gingerly and breathed a sigh of relief. Dean slipped off his leather jacket and crossed the room to hang it on a chair back in the dining area and sneaked a look at her. He watched quizzically as Grace, totally oblivious to him, stared down at her lap and whispered something as she caressed her abdomen with both hands. Sitting down next to her he crossed his legs and leaned back. He put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder with his hand.

"I told him to cover his ears," she said and turned to snuggle into him. She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to his even breathing and to his heart beating soundly, its cadence soothing, reassuring and although uncertainty rippled through her she started to speak.

"Azazel..." she said and her chin began to quiver and her voice became thick as her throat threatened to close up, "took me for a reason."

Dean thoughts turned immediately to an avalanche that had closed a mountain highway forcing his dad, Sammy and him to take shelter in a crowded mountain bar. A smoking hot waitress had taken pity on them and had agreed to help his father, dooming herself and her daughter in the process, and he was ready to climb aboard the Guilt Express once again.

"Because of my father," he lamented and she elbowed him in the ribs.

"Oh, horseshit, Winchester."

"Excuse me?"

Her annoyance at his suggestion that helping John Winchester was anything more than a link in an unfortunate chain of events gave strength to her words. "I don't blame anyone but the beast himself and his desire to live up to his father's expectations."

Dean's breath hitched and she was sorry if her comment hit closer to home than he would have liked but pleasing John Winchester was pretty far from pleasing Satan.

"Azazel took me because he wanted a surrogate, a warm body to harbor his demon daughter Lilith and than to carry his demon seed. He wanted a son, a son to lead the way, a son for Satan." She stopped to let her words sink in, to give him time to react, time to pull away from her.

Dean did move but only to pull her closer and to warm her against the sudden chill that gripped her heart and caused her to shiver outwardly. Dean didn't know what to say to her. Grace had a way of leaving him speechless and this was no exception. What could he possibly say to make it all right again. Not for him but for her? "Grace, you don't have to explain." He offered her a way out but she turned him down flat.

"Yeah, I do. You deserve to know everything."

"What he wanted was impossible, right? It would have just been whichever host he was in."

"It was possible...with him inside of me, with Lilith inside of me."

"Christ!" It was all he could say and Grace squirmed as his hand gripped her shoulder tightly and he apologized, his voice low, strained.

"When he succeeded he booted Lilith and without him to control her she birthday partied hardy burning through kiddie hosts like there was no tomorrow."

"So, on top of everything else, old yellow eyes was a rapist, an incestuous pedophile and a son of a bitch." Dean said it more to himself than to her as he mentally added his litany of evil to the demon's already impressive resume as a mass murderer.

"A son of a bitch, yeah, but never the proud papa." Grace stopped and swallowed hard. Her hands shook visibly and she clasped them together in her lap. She was close enough to Dean to feel his heartbeat accelerate, hear his breath come faster. It was a perverse and evil tale but it was also an undeniable part of her life, a part of what made her tick. It was also the main reason she was a hunter, the reason she had been alone most of her life and the reason she would soon be alone again. "As soon as I knew I was pregnant I took a pair of scissor and made sure **it** would never live to see the dark of hell."

The man beside her had grown absolutely still but Grace closed her eyes and continued. "I knew I should have told you everything from the very beginning...but I didn't know I'd fall in love with you. I'm so sorry, Dean."

"Don't!" Dean said emphatically and pushed her away from him.

Grace's face paled. She let out a quavering breath and silently berated herself for letting her guard down, for letting her heart get the best of her.

Dean turned to face her, his eyes unreadable but brimming with tears. He placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. "Don't you ever apologize to me."

Her story was disturbing and it did make him uncomfortable and angry...but it wasn't her fault. None of it was and his heart broke for her. He felt bad for her, the way he felt bad for Sammy, sorry that the two people he loved the most in the world still suffered at the hands of a monster. He was angry that they should have been subjected to such evil but he was also proud of them. He admired them both for having the courage to carry on in spite of it all and he hoped that, if he could keep his shit together long enough, they would be proud of him, too.

Grace's lips trembled as all of her fierce determination not to cry when he said good-bye crumbled and there was real fear behind the unshed tears in her eyes.

"It's okay, baby. It's over," he said and took her in his arms. "We're never gonna talk about it again; never gonna waste another tear on Azazel. And Lilith, well she's next on my list. I owe her, for me...and for you."

"You're not leaving?" Grace asked incredulously, not sure whether she should be happy or sad. She'd just told him a story of rape and self-mutilation. She was definitely damaged goods but he didn't seem to care and that made him either a saint or just plain crazy.

Dean shook his head and thought that if she could see what was in his heart she would have never asked. "I'm staying but I have terms, Grace," he said earnestly, "Have faith in me and I'll try my level best to never end up telling you I'm sorry...and I want you to promise me that no matter what stupid things Sammy says I say or do, that you'll never leave me."

Grace Downey looked at Dean Winchester. He was so handsome and so sincere with his heart on his sleeve that she told him, "I'm not ever gonna leave you, Dean Winchester. I'm permanent."

Dean was well satisfied and said with a grin, "You mean like a really cool flaming skull tattoo?"

Grace laughed and ran her fingers through the spikes of hair on his head. "Nah, more like a really cool Hello Kitty tat."


	14. Chapter 14

Singer Auto Salvage, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, April 24, 2009

Sam answered his cell and the strained look that came over the young hunter's features sent Bobby's readiness factor to DEFCON 3. "Grace, whatever it is it'll be okay. Just please don't cry." Quickly out of his depth Sam's voice took on a panicked sound as he tried to calm the woman on the other end of the line.

Realizing it was Weeping Wanda Bobby moved cautiously back to DEFCON 4 and asked, "What's wrong?"

Sam placed his hand over the receiver and whispered loudly, "They're in Vegas," and went back to soothing Grace.

Ah, Vegas, Bobby thought, Sin City in more ways than one.

"Wait'll you stop hiccuping. Then you can start again," Sam told Grace as he heard her struggle to speak again, "Grace? Grace is Dean there?"

There was a pregnant pause after which Sam begged, "Please, Grace, put him on the phone."

"What happened?" Bobby wanted to know and when Sam just shrugged, the seasoned hunter muttered, "If I told that boy once I told him a thousand times there ain't no right answer to 'Does this make me look fat?'."

Sam listened intently for a few minutes more and a myriad of emotions crossed his face. He then simply said goodbye and hung up the phone.

"Well, what'd he do now to make her cry?"

Since Dean had started his 'she loves me'...'she loves me not' courtship of Jewels' daughter Bobby was never quite sure where things stood between the two of them. The telephone call could have been any number of things from benign or malevolent. From the "Dude, she did not slam the door in my face!" call to the "Grace has been in an accident!" call he'd made just a couple of weeks before.

"Well, I couldn't understand a word Grace said but Dean said, and I quote, "We're in Vegas and Elvis just married us in an insane little white chapel and oh, yeah, I knocked her up."

Bobby sucked in a breath and let it out in an incredulous laugh, "Well, Dean always did have a way with words. I'm taking it Grace's tears were tears of joy?"

"Oh, yeah. She's, and I quote again, 'over the moon'."

Bobby flopped down in an ancient recliner, a stupefied grin on his face, and shook his head.

"Better that then up shit creek. And Dean?"

"Couldn't be happier," Sam said, his voice more thoughtful than cheerful.

"And you're thinkin' this is really gonna change things. Between you and your brother I mean?"

Changes between Sam and Dean Winchester had always been very fluid and of late extremely volatile. Horrific memories and angels drove Dean while demons pulled at Sam but maybe this turn of events would change things for the better. "Not so much, I hope. Actually I was just wondering what poor Grace did to deserve Dean," Sam said with a wry smile, "And what Dean did to deserve someone as awesome as Grace?"

"He went to hell and back, that's what," Bobby said softly. He looked at Sam who just smiled crookedly. "It's about time both you and your brother both stopped getting the shitty end of the stick. You're long overdue for a little happiness."

Bobby was right but as Sam thought of his brother and Grace and their unborn baby he would only allow himself to be cautiously optimistic. The deck had always been stacked against the Winchesters and anyone they had ever loved so the odds clearly weren't in their favor. "How about you 'Uncle' Bobby. Are you ready to take on another Winchester?"

"I gave my word to your daddy that I'd be here for you boys so I guess it applies to grand-kids, too. I'll do whatever needs doing...except for diapers.

"You think it'll be a boy or a girl?"

"Yes."

Sam smiled then sighed wearily and Bobby eyed him suspiciously wondering what he hadn't told him. Dean had dropped a third bomb in his phone sortie and Sam said, his mouth settling in a grim line, "Dean also said that maybe we should meet him there. He's having girlfriend trouble."

Bobby's eyebrow rose in surprise and he chuckled, "Dean run into an old girlfriend on his honeymoon?"

Sam shook his head. "Not his girlfriend. Mine."


	15. Chapter 15

Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas Strip, April 26, 2009

Sam rested his arms on the reservation desk and waited patiently for the clerk to finish with a customer. When she was through she came to stand before him, a nameplate scribed Terri on her ample bosom and a smile on her cute as a button round little face.

"Good evening sirs. How may I help you?"

Sam smiled in return and said, "I'd like the room number for Tony Iommi."

Checking her computer the young woman told him, "The Iommi party's been moved to the penthouse. I can call them for you if you'd like."

"Please." Sam turned slowly and mouthed 'penthouse'.

Bobby gave a barely discernible shrug and a quiet grunt.

"Mr. Iommi? There's a Mr..." she stopped and turned questioning eyes to Sam.

"Shaw, Thomas Shaw," Sam told her.

"A mister Thomas Shaw here in the lobby," she said and paused to listen, "Yes, he's very tall," another pause and the woman's eyebrow's shot up and she worked hard to stifle a laugh, "and I'm sure I wouldn't know if he's a tool or not, Mr. Iommi. Alright, I'll send them up." She replaced the phone in its cradle and, blushing almost as much as Sam, pointed to the elevators and gave them directions to the suite.

When they rang the bell Dean watched them through the closed circuit monitor mounted next to the door. They were alone and he opened the door to the luxurious suite and invited them inside.

"Way to keep it under the radar, Tony," Bobby said dropping his small overnight bag on the floor.

"It's not me," Dean told them. They moved us here after Lita kept winning at Texas Hold 'em." He then said in a conspiratorial whisper, "I think she cheats."

"Lita?" Bobby asked his eyebrows raising.

"Ford, Bobby. You know "Close My Eyes Forever", Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford," Sam explained then asked, "Have you seen Ruby?"

"Yeah, a couple of times. But she's going out of her way to keep her distance. I think she's waiting for someone," Dean told his brother.

Sam grew uncomfortable when he thought she was probably waiting for him.

"Where's Gr...where's Lita now?" Bobby asked and looked toward the master suit. He never thought Dean would be foolish enough to let her out of his sight with a demon in town but he was floored when he heard his answer.

"Down in the card room," Dean told them with a defeated shrug of his shoulders, "I can't keep her away."

"Don't you think it's kinda risky? Ruby could..."

"Ruby could be in big trouble, Sammy. Especially if she crosses Grace when she's on a winning streak."

Bobby snorted a laugh and thought Dean was probably right. Grace hadn't survived this long without being tough as nails and having a trick or two up her sleeve.

"You guys fight over which one of you gets the magic fingers and I'll go get her." Dean left the room and headed for the lobby but the carpet to Grace was soon paved with only his good intentions.

A tall, busty, red-headed showgirl dressed in nothing more than a few strategically placed purple sequined straps and an elaborate headdress of Mardi Gras colored ostrich feathers stood outside the Folies Bergere theater. She crooked her finger and Dean, being Dean, followed her inside temporarily giving up his search for his wife.

Grace found him inside the showroom talking to one of the showgirls. Big Red's elaborate purple, green and gold plumage swayed as she laughed at something Dean said. The woman was at least six feet tall plus a few more inches in her ridiculously high heels. That left Dean, who was a little over six feet tall, speaking into her over-endowed chest and while Grace trusted him implicitly, she headed toward him to re-stake her claim. What happened in Vegas may stay in Vegas but it wasn't always without consequence.

"Step away from the boobs, Winchester," Grace called out as she walked down the aisle toward the stage.

"Is that the little missus, cowboy?" the showgirl asked.

Dean turned and gave Grace a half-wave and a guilty smile. For the life of him he had not been able to keep his eyes off of the woman's cleavage no matter how hard he tried. His smile quickly faded as the look of benign tolerance on Grace's face turned to fear and then quickly to angry disgust.

It wasn't her husband's wondering eyes that caused Grace's sudden change of emotion but the woman herself, tall, elegant and evil. When Grace took her place beside Dean and put her arm through his possessively she simply stared at the red-head and the sudden chill in the room caused the hair on the back of Dean's neck to stand on end.

Fuck! He should have known something was wrong. A woman like Delilah Sampson wouldn't be interested in someone like him. He was good looking enough but flat broke and his stomach clenched when he heard her say to his wife, "Long time no see, Grace."

"You know her?" Dean asked and wondered just how much time Grace had spent in Sin City.

"She's an old friend," Grace told him dispassionately and Dean relaxed a little until she added, "But I could have gone the rest of my life without ever seeing her again."

"And you would have," Delilah said with a sneer and a jaw jut in Dean's direction, "if you hadn't let this walking corpse fuck you."

Immediately Dean knew it was Lilith and he started to pull Grace away.

"I love you, baby," she said and pulled him back, "warts and all."

Lilith took a step back and stared intently into Grace's face.

"So, it's true. There is a bun in the oven." Delilah glanced at Grace's midsection and came closer to the two of them, her headdress swaying wildly.

Dean drew Grace close. He put his arm around her protectively and threatened angrily, "If you touch a hair on her head, I'll go back to hell long enough to go full on demon. Then I will hunt you down and kill you."

"More empty promises, Dean?" Red asked, "When the going got tough you hung in there. You hung on for thirty years and then, when the going got easier and bloodier, you just left, all your promises broken."

Dean's grip on Grace tightened and he began to shake as his screamed promises to 'do anything they wanted', to 'be anything they wanted him to be' as long as they stopped the pain played back in his mind.

"Some say you were our greatest failure but I think it was mission accomplished. We broke you. We broke you hard."

"Do I look broken to you, you psycho bitch?" he asked, his lip curling.

"You look okay...on the outside. But how've you been sleeping lately, huh?"

Dean took in a shaky breath. He didn't sleep well, if at all, and it showed on his face, in his eyes.

She smirked at him, "I thought as much."

"Everything okay in here?" Bobby asked as he walked through the door and into the empty theater followed by Sam and Ruby.

"She came right to me," Lilith said and nodded to Ruby, acknowledging some prior arrangement.

"What's going on?"

"It's okay, Sammy. Lilith and I are just catching up on old times. There's nothing to worry about." Grace pivoted to keep Ruby in her line of sight.

Sam turned on the demon and asked, "You brought Lilith here?"

"Duh, Sam," Ruby said with a flip of her long, dark hair, "We couldn't just sit by and let your brother procreate. He's dog paddling in the shallow end of the gene pool as it is."

Sam's face paled visibly and Bobby said under his breath, "Oh, this bitch is so dead."

Ruby simply laughed, "Maybe...if you still had my knife, old man."

"Years ago we had other plans for Grace but she and her mother proved to be quite elusive and resourceful, right up until the accident."

Grace just took Lilith's words in stride. She never believed in accidents, only in twists of fate and she knew that this was just one more on each of their respective journeys.

"We got Jewels," Lilith said smugly, "but this bitch..."

"Was always ours."

Castiel's voice rang out from his perch on the edge of the stage where he sat watching them all.


	16. Chapter 16

Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas Strip, April 26, 2009

Dean looked to his right and was, for once, thankful for the angel's appearance if only to keep Grace safe. He figured it wasn't going to end well for him and he could only hope to be a nuisance and keep Lilith busy long enough for Sam who had the juice to destroy her to do his thing.

"Castiel," Lilith said. Her plumage swayed more vigorously when she nodded toward him, "What's it been? Two thousand years?"

Grace leaned in to whisper into Dean's ear. "Is that your angel, honey? He's hot."

Dean laughed in spite of himself, in spite of the fear he felt and the danger they were in. Grace would surely be the death of him because nothing fazed the woman.

Ignoring the loving couple Castiel just watched Lilith, taking her measure.

She noticed and said spitefully, "Things must be really bad for you to walk among mere mortals."

"Thing have been better," the angel agreed, his outward calm deceptive.

"I heard about Abdiel. His death must have been hard on you, on your master," she said taking an impatient step toward the stage, "Then again if it weren't for Abdiel maybe none of this would be happening."

The death of any angel was heart wrenching but the death of Abdiel was so much more. Having been fooled once by Satan, Abdiel had been extreme in his repentance and in his vigilance and had given up his life willingly in the fight to stop the breaking of one of the Greater Seals. God had wept as had his brothers.

"There are casualties in all wars," Castiel said in a measured voice.

"But there are a finite number of you whereas there seems to be a steady supply of demons. Why some misguided fools are even selling their soul to keep demons alive," she pointed out and looked directly at Dean.

Refusing to rise to the "Sammy bait" she dangled in front of him, Dean told her angrily, "Just bring 'em, bitch.

Lilith stared at him with dead eyes and told him, "Many are already here. Summoned by Sam's little friend here." She turned her head to look at Ruby who squirmed uneasily.

Ruby had a symbiotic relationship with Sam helping him strengthen his powers in her own demonic way while Sam, trusting her implicitly up until today, had fucked her eight ways to Sunday. The sex was a bonus really because Sam's ability to destroy those more powerful than her was the true end to her means. But Sam wasn't ready yet so she had to do what she could to keep Lilith happy and leading her to Dean and Grace was better than any old birthday party.

"Other's are on their way, summoned by me," Lilith added.

"How Randall Flagg of you," Dean said sarcastically.

Lilith's dead eyes came to life and glowed as she focused her gaze on Grace.

"I told you she's ours," Castile reminded her.

"Yes, I suppose she is," Lilith conceded, a conclusion draw shortly after their obvious failures with the girl, "But Dean Winchester...he was all mine. You risked a lot coming into my house and taking him...especially after John."

"God has work for him," Castiel interrupted matter-of-factly and hopped down from the stage.

"This is God's work?" Lilith sneered pointing to Grace's barely visible 'baby bump'.

"All human creation is God's work," Castiel said and he knew Dean Winchester's true work had just begun.

But God's plan didn't matter to Lilith. Only the breaking of the Seals did and for that she needed Sam Winchester alive and his brother and his spawn either dead or back in hell where demons had control. Lilith was determined to go up against the angels no matter the cost and Grace's abomination could not stand if the unholy were to survive.

Lilith then simply said, "That's all well and good but I've got another performance in thirty minutes so let's get this show on the road."

Suddenly Ruby was on Dean like stink on demon as she pushed and slammed him up against the wall while Lilith held up her hand and pain ripped through Grace's body.

Clutching her midsection Grace turned panicked eyes first to her husband, who struggled to his feet only to find his path to her barred by Ruby, then to Castiel who just seemed content to stand there and let the demons have their way.

Bobby, on the other hand, sprang into action and tossed Dean a gun.

"Sammy, use your mojo and gank Lilith!" Dean shouted then aimed the gun at Ruby and fired.

The bullet tore into her midsection and damaged the body severely but the demon inside was unharmed and unfazed. Ruby came at Dean with a vengeance and literally mopped the floor with him.

Sam pushed Bobby safely out of the way and lifted his arm and opened his mouth to begin the exorcism of Lilith.

"You have been warned, Sam Winchester!" Uriel now stood above them on the stage Castiel had just vacated his hands on his hips and his dark face menacing.

Sam glanced at the angel, pressed his lips together in angry defiance and ignored the warning. He began the invocation and if Uriel wanted to kill him for saving the life of his niece or nephew so be it.

Uriel leapt from the stage, no mean feat considering the size of his host body, and strode toward Sam. Castiel held up a hand and stopped his comrade in his tracks.

Suddenly Grace screamed again but not from the pain but in warning. "Cover your eyes!" she shouted and ran to Sam and buried her face in his broad chest.

Sam held onto her, his face buried in her hair, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and prayed that Dean and Bobby had done the same.

Dean punched Ruby solidly in the chin and her head snapped back as he covered his eyes and listened while Ruby screamed again and again until her voice was a harsh whisper. Dean ventured a peek through his fingers and was physically knocked back by the brightness that enveloped the room. He then heard a warning voice but didn't know if it was real or only in his head. Regardless, he wouldn't open his eyes again until he was sure that the angels were gone.

The room grew ominously silent and Dean finally opened his eyes cautiously and blinked a few times to bring everything into focus. "Grace?" he called out and realized that his eyesight was okay but that his hearing was slightly impaired, muted, like after an Iron Maiden concert. He stood up and found he was also unsteady on his feet, his equilibrium out of whack, as he looked around for Grace. He saw her held safely in Sam's arms, her face still hidden against his chest.

Sam looked at him over her head with a stunned look on his face and when Dean crossed over to them and gently took her arm Grace lifted his face to him. Tears ran down her cheeks and ignoring the pain from the savage beating he'd taken just minutes before from Ruby he enveloped her in his arms and let Weeping Wanda cry it all out.

Lilith was gone, shedding her skin like the snake she was, and the showgirl's lifeless body, eyes now burned completely out of her head, lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the stage next to Ruby, her eyes gone, too. But she wasn't dead and she didn't need eyes to hate. Her loathing of Dean Winchester radiated off of her in waves as Sam knelt down in front of her to inspect the damage. When he tried to take her chin in his hand she knocked it away and rasped out, "Are you satisfied now?"

Sam looked around and noticed that Castiel and Uriel were also gone but they had left behind a single word burned into the stage curtains - Apdal.


	17. Chapter 17

Panic Room, Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, May 26, 2009

A long silence stretched out before Grace and Bobby as they sat side by side on the small bed, their backs against the iron wall of the space Dean had dubbed the panic room. It was broken only by the soft whisper of turning pages as Bobby searched for information on the word Abdal while Grace looked around at his creation.

"You know, Grace," he said to her, "when you hole up in here it makes me think you don't trust me to protect you when the boys are gone."

Dean's new wife sucked in her breath, horrified that she may have offended the only man, other than John Winchester, that the two brothers had ever look up to. "I don't mean to," she apologized. "it's just..."

"Lilith?"

"And Ruby." Grace nodded and, unable to hide her dislike of Sam's pet demon, wrinkled up her nose, "They hate Dean so much, hate his son."

"Son?" Bobby said quirking an eyebrow.

Grace just patted his hand and told him with a smile, "A mother knows."

The seasoned hunter returned to his research and the room grew quiet again until Grace added, "Another reason I like it in here is that there's no cell phone reception," she said and Bobby burst out laughing and marked his place in the large book in his lap. If Dean had called once, he had called a hundred times to check up on them and Bobby no longer felt any sympathy for him when Grace hung up on him. He picked up the book again and this time started to read aloud.

"Abdals, the Substitutes, seventy mysterious spirits whose identities are known only to God alone and through whose operations the world continues to exist. They are not immortal and when one of them dies, another is secretly appointed by God as a replacement." His voice was soothing as he read from the old book on God's Heavenly Hierarchy and Grace, finished with her first trimester and still barely showing, had her knees drawn up under her chin as she listened intently and tried to make some sense of the angels' message.

"So is one on the way? Am I one? Is Dean? Are you? Is the baby? Is Sam one in disguise?" she wanted to know.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Bobby said and closed the book with a slap, "I hate all this angelic cryptic crapola."

"What do you think God's work for Dean is?"

"I don't know. I though it was to take care of Sam when the time comes but now I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?"

"That God's work is the same as John's last order for Dean. If he couldn't save Sam he was to kill him."

"Save him?"

"From turning into Darth Vader I guess. More cryptic bullshit."

Grace worried about Sam and his liaison with Ruby and hoped her betrayal of his brother would break the tie that bound them so tightly but she knew first hand how seductive evil, in its true form, was whether practicing it or hunting it. "What was John Winchester like?" she then asked.

Bobby sucked in a lungful of air through his nose, his mouth set in a grim line, and rolled his eyes.

"I saw that," she quipped and he laughed.

"Let me start by saying that there must have been something inherently good about the man if only for the fact that your mom liked him so much."

Grace smiled and remembered her mother's wistful voice when she spoke of the man.

"But, from the first day I met him up until the day he made the deal to save Dean, he was a world class son of a bitch."

"Did he ever know about Mary's deal?"

"He knew she had history with old yellow eyes but not what it was exactly."

"So he never knew she sacrificed everything for him?"

"No, he never did," Bobby answered dourly. He thought that the world would be better off right now had Mary Campbell's deal never been made because that kind of well meaning but misguided and self serving love always came with a hefty price tag.

"Bobby?" Grace said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, hon." He looked over at her as she rested the back of her head against the salt covered wall.

"If anything ever happens to me promise me you won't let him make another deal."

Bobby prayed Dean would never have to resort to it again but knew that he would never be able to keep his promise to her if Dean had other ideas. "He's pretty hard headed when he sets his mind to something."

"Yeah but with my luck I'll probably come back as Sarah Palin."

Bobby's eyebrows shot up and he looked thoughtfully at her and breaking into a smile he said, "You know, that's a damn scary thought...and it just might do the trick."


	18. Chapter 18

Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, June 24, 2009

Grace walked slowly down the hallway toward the bedroom, her hands resting on her ever expanding belly, talking softly to herself.

Dean saw her pass by in the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth but she must have stopped immediately and put herself into reverse because she walked backward into the reflection and stared at him. Like a preening peacock he flexed his back muscles for her but her eyes weren't on his back or his backside. They were glued to the bandage on his upper arm

She came up behind him and asked, "Aw, did you get a booboo, tough guy?"

He bent low to spit in the sink then straightened back up and smiled at her in the mirror. "Yeah, and it hurt like a bitch," he told her with a whimper and a wibbly lower lip.

Grace fired questions at him. How had it happened? Did he need stitches? Had he bothered to use an antiseptic? and when he remained mum she gently pulled up the edge of the bandage to check for herself. "Oh no, you did not!" she laughed and pulled the bandage the rest of the way off to reveal a diminutive image of Hello Kitty, complete with pink jumper and tiny red bow. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder and looked at his reflection in the mirror. "That is the sweetest thing," she told him, "Wait 'til I tell Sammy."

Dean broke free from her embrace and turned to face her. He squeezed her arms with his hands and commanded, "You will not tell Sammy," and then he added, "Or Bobby," and added again, "Or anybody else you know...or will ever meet."

"Okay, I'll let everyone go on thinking you're a bad ass," she said reluctantly, "But that _is_ the sweetest thing because every time some guy says 'Hey Dude, you got a little girl kitty on your arm' and you have to beat the crap out of him...you'll think of me." She kissed him full on the lips and he laughed against her mouth and slipped her his tongue. She closed her eyes and a tiny moan sounded in her throat and a shiver ran up his spine and he pushed her away and ordered her to brush her teeth and get ready for bed.

Later as they lay in the bed, Grace wrapped in his Hello Kitty arm, she told him, "You must really love me." Dean looked at her like she was crazy, hurt that she even doubted it, until she finished, "'Cause if you ever leave me no woman's ever gonna wanna sleep with you 'til you get rid of that tattoo...and it's gonna hurt like a bitch...again"

He laughed. "Not a chance in hell, girl, I'm permanent. Now where are you gonna put that flaming skull?"

"Not happenin', Winchester, and you should thank your lucky stars that I didn't mention a unicorn...or that bong hitting dolphin...or that monkey sticking his finger up the other monkey's butt."

He shut her up with a sloppy wet kiss. "What were you telling him...before you came into the bathroom?" he asked and caressed her abdomen.

"That I was happy his daddy was home and that he should ignore anything he hears tonight."


	19. Chapter 19

Midnight, The Avenues, Cheyenne, Wyoming, August 24, 2009

The old shack stank of rot, mold and sulfur. It was dark, the interior lit by only a few measly candles that gave off just enough light to illuminate a gurney on which his next victim lay covered by a sheet. Whispered voices urged him on with compliments such as, "masterful", "an artist's touch", "a thing of beauty", "a job well done", and challenges, "make her scream", "make the floorboards slick with blood"; "she needs to suffer for your betrayal", and his body responded in kind, caressed by the soft alluring voices like the stroke of a beautiful woman's hand.

Alone in the room he couldn't see them but he felt their presence as they watched, ready to pass judgment. Ordinarily unbearably crowded and with barely enough room to move or to breathe they'd given him a wide berth in which to work, for this, his first solo venture. Alistair was gone, topside he'd been told, so he'd have to go this one alone, a gift from his teacher and he would do his best to make his mentor proud, a feat he'd never been able to accomplish with his own father.

Humming softly he looked over the tools of his new trade all laid out on a gleaming stainless steel cart. He then turned to the covered lump that lay on the metal gurney. He could tell by the smell that it was a woman and by the size of the quivering mound that she was a big one, a fatted calf, ripe for the slaughter, probably bursting with malevolent sin.

Maybe she'd taken the food from her children's mouth, gambled the money away or shot it into her veins while they waited, their bellies distended and painful, helpless to do anything but wail piteously. Or maybe she was just a pig, guilty of "Gula", "Avaritia" and "Acedia". Good sins, deadly sins but she was not even in his league.

He himself had always suffered passionately from "Invidia", "Luxuria" and "Superbia" and as he picked up one of the knives, long and thin and with serrations on both the top and bottom edges, he ran his finger across the blade and when he cut it to the bone he smiled. The pain should have been excruciating but as the blood ran down his hand to his wrist to finally drip onto the floor at his feet he didn't feel a thing. The only pain he ever felt was the pain of his failures, his losses, his mistakes and they ate at him, fueled the deadliest of his sins, "Ira".

Without even removing the sheet he took the knife and angrily plunged it deep into the body and waited. He could feel the others as they pushed in closer anxious for the first tortured cries but instead of the screams of which his nightmares were made the body only bucked violently.

Tearing away the sheet he could see that Alistair had fitted the woman with a rubber mask to keep her from crying out. It kept her from seeing who tortured her and although her face was completely hidden behind the mask he was delighted to see that she wasn't fat at all but nine months pregnant...or had been before he'd stabbed her.

Grabbing a thin steel hook from the cart, he threaded it through the skin, sinew and muscle of her right shoulder and hooked it to a length of chain. He repeated the process on her left side and watched with detachment as she tried to cover the wounds with her hands, to staunch the flow of thick red-black blood that flowed from them. As she did the chains pulled taught and her flesh ripped.

"Kill the child, kill the child," they began to chant and he ran his hands over her swollen breasts and down to her midsection where he felt the taught skin move ever so subtly. The abomination was still alive. This was the child Alistair had warned him about. It was not the child Azazel had so desperately wanted, the child who would grow up to lead Satan's army on earth, but a child who could bring about their downfall, a child who must die.

And why shouldn't this kid die? he reasoned. What good would it do to live in a world gone absolutely insane? To live in a world where things would only get worse before it got annihilated? He'd be doing him a favor. He moved up to the head of the gurney to tell the mother just that and that's when Grace awoke to his scream.

Dean huddled naked on floor in the corner of the room banging his head against the wall hard enough to do some serious damage if she didn't stop him. Grace switched on the light and he cowered even more, turning his tear-streaked face to the wall. Slipping from the bed she crouched down beside him and grabbed his face in her hands to try and awaken him and that's when he flung out his hand and hit her in the face, sending her flying back against the bed frame.

"I've done everything you wanted but the pain keeps coming back!" he sobbed and wrapped his arms around his legs and rocked back and forth.

Grace ran her fingers over her puffing lip and pulled them away bloody. She squinted purposefully at her husband. "All right, Winchester," she warned him, "I love you more than my own life but you need to wake up and deal with this and deal with it now!"

His episodes had become more frequent and more violent and he'd become more withdrawn as he tamped his memories and fears further and further down inside of him to try to make everything all right for her she suspected. He put up a rock solid front when he was awake but it invariably cracked a little more each time he went to sleep.

Dean Winchester needed help to get past his time in hell but there was no Outreach Program or Veteran's Hospital to treat the walking wounded of his particular war so Grace had gone on waiting for him to finally open up to her, to tell her the rest of the story. Dean, afraid that she would leave him if he told her the truth, held back and waited for her to finally come to her senses and leave him on her own accord.

It was okay that the two of them were so screwed up that they put the 'fun' back in dysfunctional and even though they loved each other completely there was a baby in their near future and Grace couldn't risk being caught in the middle of a full-blown PTSD knock down drag out between Dean and his personal demons. She didn't want to be afraid of her own husband and she didn't want their son to be afraid of his father. She had vowed that that part of the Winchester legacy would stop here and now.

Dean continued to rock and to keen eerily and Grace shouted "Christo!" just to be sure and getting no reaction she dumped a bottle of water on his head. It wasn't holy water and he wasn't possessed but he woke up shouting and loaded for bear and Grace didn't manage to get out of the way quick enough and he jumped her and they fell back onto the bed.

"Wake up!" she shouted and slapped him hard in the face hoping to stop him before he could slip his hands around her neck and throttle the life out of her.

Suddenly his eyes focused and Dean just stared at her in bewilderment. His face was pinched in worry but when he saw her split lip and the blood that dribbled down her chin it took on a look of abject misery. Swallowing hard he whispered, "I am so sorry, Grace."

Grace's blood ran cold and she instinctively knew that he was done waiting for her to make the first move. He was going to leave her.


	20. Chapter 20

Last Stand Motel, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, September 24, 2009

Here by my side, an angel  
Here by my side, the devil  
Never turn your back on me  
Never turn your back on me, again  
Here by my side, it's Heaven

Here by my side, you are destruction  
Here by my side, a new color to paint the world  
Never turn your back on it  
Never turn your back on it, again  
Here by my side, it's Heaven

Careful, be careful  
Careful, be careful  
This is where the world drops off  
Where the world drops off  
Careful, be careful  
You breathe in and you breathe out  
For it ain't so weird  
How it makes you a weapon  
And you give in  
And you give out  
For it ain't so weird  
How it makes you a weapon  
Never turn your back on it  
Never turn your back on it again

Careful, be careful

Here by my side, it's Heaven

"Matthew Good? Not your usual style of music, Dean," Castiel said and as he cast a disparaging eye around the dark, dank motel room he added, "You are a hard man to find."

Looking up from the mound of books and paperwork that covered the kitchenette table top Dean turned the volume down on the radio and simply stared with ambivalence at the angel who had appeared out of thin air.

"Does she know you're so close?" the angel then asked as he pulled the bed covers back up over the pillows. He sat on the end of the bed, forearms on his knees, "Of course she doesn't. She wouldn't be so frightened...or so heartbroken."

"Did you come here just to hurt me?" Dean asked because the plain truth of the matter was that what Castiel said did hurt him. His words only added to the mountain of pain and regret he'd already heaped on himself until he was sure that one more comments about the obvious would crush him.

"I'm sorry. I just wondered what happened to the man God wanted me to save."

Dean leaned back in his chair and asked, "Why don't you ask Alistair?"

Castiel shrugged his shoulders and picked lint off of his pants. "I have. He told me he's not through with you, not by a long shot and that he'll use your self pity, your self-loathing and your weakness to put an end to what you and Grace so recklessly started."

"Tell him to bring it," Dean said with a cold smile and the absolute certainty that he would die for his wife and child...gladly. He stood and stretched cramped muscles and walked out some of the stiffness from sitting for so long all the while a bottle of whiskey called to him from the kitchen counter. He offered it first to Castiel, who declined, then drank directly from the bottle.

"You don't love your son?"

Dean took another swallow his hands gripping the bottle so tightly that it shook. He refused to rise to the bait and tamped his anger down into his emotional black pit. "I'd die for him," he said without emotion, "So I'm staying away, staying out of her life. I know Grace is special and he'll be okay as long as she is. Like the song says, never turn your back on me, again."

"You give Alistair too much credit. Your dreams, he can orchestrate them; make you believe in them until you become _his_ weapon. But God has made you strong, stronger than you realize, strong enough to survive hell."

Dean tilted the bottle back again. He didn't really care what God or the angels had to say to him anymore. "It doesn't matter. I made Sammy and Bobby both promise that, if they saw me coming, they'd shoot to kill because it wouldn't really be me."

"And you think they'll follow through?"

Dean snorted. "Bobby, without a doubt and Sammy, he's got the new and improved Ruby who's still trying to earn her Dead Dean Merit Badge."

Castiel stood and came into the kitchen area. He noted the dirty dishes piled high in the sink and the large number of take out containers littering the counters. A stash of empty bottles surrounded the trashcan and the angel wondered just how far Dean had wandered from the path. He tried a different approach. "And you trust Sam not to hurt Grace?"

"Absolutely, you fuck stick!" the hunter lashed out, "I may not know everything my brother's doing anymore or why he's doing it but I know him well enough to know that he wouldn't harm a hair on her head."

Castiel knew it was true and that he probably was a "fuck stick" but it had been worth a try. Grace was growing weaker, God's vessel was breaking down and Alistair's plan was working despite and because of Dean's noble intentions. "Grace wants to respect her vows, to stand by you in sickness and in health."

"I know she does but what part of 'till death us do part don't _you_ get? I was ready to kill her and whether it was because of some post traumatic stress bullshit dream or some demonic mind fuck, I don't care because dead is dead," Dean told him angrily. After a short silence he became retrospective again and added, "Or at least I thought it was."

"Would you had rather I left you in the pit?"

"Well, let me tell you how it's workin' for me, Dr. Phil," Dean said and took a long swallow from the bottle of whiskey, "I'm back from hell knowing that for ten years I tortured souls and liked it and that even before my body was cold my baby brother was shacking up with a demon. I also find out that angels do exist and that Lilith is breaking seals like there's no tomorrow. But that's okay. There probably won't be any tomorrow because the angels are dickless wonders who can't seem to stop her. You want me to go on?"

Castiel lifted his shoulders and rotated them as if his unseen wings had become uncomfortably weighty. His wings were fine but what had become heavy was his heart. Before him stood one of God's finest and Dean Winchester hadn't a clue as to his true purpose or worth dwelling only on his perceived failures and his very real misfortunes.

The angel opened his mouth to tell him that all was not lost but Dean cut him off angrily. "Oh, yeah and I had a prophetic dream about killing my son and I actually tried to kill my wife. So if you say that God works in mysterious ways I swear to him that I will jack you up!"

Taking Dean's threat to heart Castiel closed his mouth and wandered over to the table and checked out the open pages of the topmost book. A short paragraph alluding to the origins of the Apdal was highlighted and the angel nodded ever so slightly.

Dean snorted again. "It was kind of hard to overlook your message," he said and, bottle in hand, crossed over to where Castiel stood and glanced down at the book. The information was totally useless as far as he was concerned, "If there were only seventy I'm guessing by the way things are going that they're all dead."

"Not seventy single Apdals but seventy familial lines through which the spirits manifest, by which the operations continue," Castiel told him and Dean just closed his eyes and wished Castiel had chosen someone more like Joe the Plumber instead of a brainiac in a business suit as a host.

He was exhausted, tired of all the crypticspeak and secrets, of the responsibility and, unlike Sam, if he could wish for anything it would be for a normal life. He longed for a little house with a white picket fence and a loving wife and a bunch of kids. He no longer cared what God's work for him was and he didn't want Lilith's head on a platter anymore or even Alistair's for that matter. He just wanted out.

Castiel would have been only too happy to oblige him but events had been put into motions long before Dean or Sam or even Mary Campbell had been born. "The Apdals themselves are known only to God but I can tell you that many have come down through the Campbell line, through Mary's lineage."

Dean immediately thought of Sam and his struggle against the demon blood forced on him as a baby and wondered if, Ruby notwithstanding, his brother would eventually be the one to stop Lilith. "Everyone's dead except for Sam and me," Dean said thinking out loud.

"That's true but you now have a wife and an unborn child to carry on the line and they need you."

"I won't have either if I go back," Dean insisted and the fear of what he knew he was capable of sliced through him again.

"I promise you no harm will come to them," Castiel told him.

"And I don't believe you," Dean said flat out and took another pull on the bottle.

"Then believe this," Castiel said and touched Dean's cheek.

The hunter was overcome with feelings of great sadness and loss and he knew that he was feeling his Grace.


	21. Chapter 21

Panic Room, Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota,

September 24, 2009

Grace heard his boots as they thundered down the wooden stairs and she hurried through the doorway just in time to see Dean heading her way. She slammed the door shut and shot the bolt home triumphantly and turned to lean her back against the door, breathing heavily, her heart racing.

"Grace?"

She heard him through the door but didn't reply.

"Grace, it's me, Dean. Bobby let me in, tested me," he said running his hand through his still wet hair.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she mocked, bobbing her head with each word.

"Grace, open the door."

"Not happening...whoever you are."

Dean pressed his forehead to the door, closed his eyes and sighed. "Grace, I'm not possessed. It's really me," he insisted.

"Oh, yeah? I got a good look at you and you don't look anything like my husband."

"Grace, I look exactly the same. I just need a shave."

She could hear the desperation starting in his voice but she had to be sure. "I don't think so, buster," she said and turned toward the door to add, "My husband's head is shaped like a penis."

Bobby had come down the stairs just in time to hear Grace's observation and smiled at Dean's gaping mouth and stunned look. The older hunter surveyed him critically and said, "I think she's exactly right. After turning tail and running out on her you did kinda turn into a dickhead."

Dean grimaced at Bobby's comments and asked tersely, "Are you gonna help me?"

"I'm sworn to protect Grace," he answered shaking his head.

"I know, I made you swear but..."

"Just what exactly are your intentions toward the very pregnant, very emotional woman hiding in my panic room?"

"To be with her 'til the day I die."

"Bobby, is that weird dude still out there? I'm getting kind of hungry."

Bobby gave Dean a sympathetic look and said, "Good luck with that," then climbed the stairs back up to the main part of the house.

Above him Dean could hear Bobby's footfalls heading to the kitchen and called through the iron door, "What have you done with Grace?"

Grace wrinkled her nose and called back, "I'm still here, stranger."

"No way. Only a witch could get Bobby Singer to drop everything and make lunch."

Grace smiled. Bobby had been a Godsend showing up in Cheyenne and insisting she go back to Sioux Falls with him. He waited on her hand and foot, literally wiping her nose when her emotions got the best of her all the while telling her it was all gonna work out, that Dean would be back and low and behold here he was with just the thickness of an iron door between them...but for how long?

"Let's say you are my husband, as you claim," she started, "Tell me something I don't know."

Jesus H. Christ, Dean thought, now she was possessed by Chris Matthews and wanted to play hardball. "Okay Grace, here goes." he took a deep breath and said, "My name is Dean Winchester and I tortured souls in hell..."

Grace took in a huge breath and held it.

"and I liked it." He was being honest to a fault, which might not be such a good thing. Grace remained silent behind the door and he turned to go.

Suddenly he could hear the iron bolt as she unbarred the door. It opened slowly and Dean was heartbroken when he saw her tears. He stepped into the room and his breath hitched as she backed away from him wiping her face on the sleeve of the sweatshirt she wore. It was one of his old one's, one she'd found in an upstairs closet, one that still smelled like him. He watched as she tried to speak but, for once in her life, Grace Downey Winchester didn't have the words.

Grace had no words with which to judge him, no false platitudes to spout to try and make him feel better about his admission. She had no words to tell him how she felt about his revelation because truthfully, at that moment, she didn't know how she felt about it. Above all, even if she had the words, she would never presume to tell him how he should feel about what he'd done.

Dean took a shaky breath but before he could speak Grace held her finger up for him to wait a moment. He gladly accepted his reprieve and waited patiently through two false starts before she was able to speak coherently. He listened with hands balled into fists at his sides.

"Dean, I know that nothing I can say, nothing anyone can ever say, will ever be enough," she told him, her voice thick with emotion, "and I just want you to know that I love you no matter what and with all of my heart. I just pray that it's enough."

Dean unclenched his fists, unclenched his jaw and unclenched his heart. He held his arms out to her and gathered Grace in close to him and just held her.

His arms were strong; his broad chest a safe place to lay her head, his steady heartbeat comforting and Grace knew that no matter what happened to them or where they ended up, if Dean Winchester was with her she would always be home.


	22. Chapter 22

Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, November 27, 2009

"So tell me, Grace. Do you still think I'm a dickhead?" Dean asked plaintively.

"Oui. Tres dickhead," she told him and when he sighed in mock disgust she added, "But if I don't tell you, sweetheart, who will?"

"Come on. It's been two months," he whined.

"But, elephant that I am," she said rubbing her baby belly, "I have a very long memory."

"I think you look beautiful." It was absolutely true. The fact that she was carrying his son, his legacy, the best parts of them both made her even more desirable to him. Even now with her so close to her due date, so emotional and oh, so bitchy he could still take one look at her incredibly lush body and be in serious need of a cold shower.

Grace couldn't, for the life of her, figure it out but she appreciated the look he got in his eyes and, dickhead or no, she loved him more each day. It had been a very long nine months for them both and with just the one slipup he'd been there for her every step of the way so she thought she'd cut him some slack. "Okay, I guess you've suffered long enough," she said and smiled at him as she folded his underwear.

Relieved and oh so grateful Dean smiled back but when her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the floor in a grand mal seizure he feared his suffering had just begun.

Neonatal Medicine Health Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, November 27, 2009

Dean stood outside of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with his face pressed up against the window. He watched his son as the doctors checked him over, relieved when one of the nurses turned and gave him a thumbs up.

"I'll stay with him," Bobby volunteered, "You go find out where they took Grace after the surgery."

"Be careful," Dean warned him. The threat of demons harming the baby was now a very real possibility and Bobby nodded gravely as Dean took off at a run down the hallway back to the nurse's station where he was told Grace had been transferred to Intensive Care. It was just as a precaution he was told but it was a lie.

""Your wife and baby can go home tomorrow" changed to "The baby's in perfect health but your wife won't be going home anytime soon" to 'You need to be ready. Your wife might not last out the night."

Dean heard the words of the faceless, nameless doctors but they had to be mistaken. Women didn't die in childbirth anymore. It was bullshit and Dean told them in so many words and none too gently.

"Eclampsia just happens." they told him.

That was it? No warning, no exact cause and no cure for the damage to Grace's liver, lungs and kidneys. No chance of a transplant because there was not enough time. No chance for a long and happy life...period.

Sam heard every word the doctors said. He heard his brother's responses and watched as Dean's expression went from mild confusion to full blown anger and then to panic. Dean brushed by the doctors and, instead of going to Grace or back to his son, he headed toward the lobby.

"Dean!" Sam yelled out as he followed him and when he refused to answer or to stop Sam grabbed his arm and pulled him roughly around and demand, "Where are you going?"

Dean look at him and Sam blinked hard. His brother's face was a calm mask belying his anger and his pain. Dean's expression showed only his determination to carry out his mission and he pulled his arm free and started down the hallway again.

"You're going to the crossroads, aren't you?" Sam called out and grabbed him again. He backed him up against the wall and Dean's mask remained unchanged. Sam then said in a low harsh voice, "I'm not gonna let you do it."

"You can't stop me, Sammy," Dean told him and pushed him back into the center of the hallway.

Sam went after him again and pushed him back up against the wall and shoved his arm across Dean's throat. "You need to stop thinking of only yourself," Sam said through clenched teeth.

Dean didn't understand. In his mind it was simple. Find a crossroad demon, make the deal and save Grace. The fact that he would die sooner than later didn't faze him in the least. He loved her completely and didn't wonder or care if his sacrifice would make her hate him for the rest of her long and happy life. She would still be alive.

"What are you gonna do if she dies while you're gone. She'll be all alone without you to even hold her hand?"

Sam's words hit him harder than a fist and he panicked at the thought. His brother was right. He had just reacted never thinking of anything other than making the deal, never considering that he might not make it in time or that the demon might not even deal with him.

"I know you made the deal after I was already dead but Dean, your face was the last thing I saw. I remember it, you were holding me and I wasn't afraid anymore," Sam said and watched as tears shimmered in his brother's eyes, "You need to be there with her. Go back. I'll make the deal."

Back in the ICU Grace's eyes opened slowly and the first thing she saw was Dean sitting in a chair next to an intravenous pole. His eyes were red rimmed and staring at her. Plastic tubes and various cords hung from the pole and she followed them with her eyes and saw that they were all attached to her and to some giant Ipod stuffed into a pocket of her hospital gown.

Her arms felt like lead when she lifted them to cradle her abdomen, a habit that was sure to be hard to break, but she was no longer enormous, just mildly plus sized and very, very sore. She turned questioning eyes to her husband and he placed his hand on hers and said, "They took the baby."

Grace was silent for a moment and then she cried out in fear. She shook her head and pulled the cannula that was feeding her extra oxygen free and tried to get up. Pain cut through her like a knife.

Realizing his mistake Dean stood up and circled her face with his hands and held her still until she would listen. "A C-section, baby. The doctors took him by C-section and he's fine. He's safe. Bobby's with him."

Grace relaxed into the pillow and closed her eyes, her head swimming from the pain meds and from the toxins building in her body. "What happened?" she asked and Dean told her everything, except for the part about her dying, and she said with a weak laugh, "That's the last time I eat Bobby's green bean casserole."

Exhaustion marred her beautiful features and as he looked at her, he thought that in a matter of hours or even minutes, she could be gone and he prayed that Sammy would make it in time.

"Tell me about the baby." she said weakly.

Dean didn't want to think about the baby, didn't want to talk about him, but he knew it was important to her. "He's healthy and has all his toes and fingers...and even if he had three heads the girls are gonna love him."

Grace laughed, "You know that's just swelling."

"No ma'am. It's a Winchester trait handed down from father to son."

"And a marvelous trait it is," she told him and he had the good grace to actually blush.

Grace closed her eyes when pain rolled through her body. He brow creased and she knew that this was much more than just a postpartum reaction, a hormone dump, and when she looked again into Dean's face she suspected the worst had come to pass. Grace suspected her time with him was short and told him, "Make sure he brushes his teeth every day...and knows that it's not okay to start a fight but that it's okay to finish one...and make sure he says his prayers every night...and above all tell him that his mom loved him so very, very much and that she wanted him to be happy."

Dean's heart turned in his chest and he used his anger to hold his tears back. To his credit his voice was even and steady when he told her, "Listen mom, all that's your job. You raise him until he can crank a wrench and then send him to me. I'll teach him how to tune the Impala, how to fight dirty when he needs to and to, above all, respect women. And to know that when the hot cheerleader says no she means no...or at least not right now."

Grace moaned and her laughter pulled at her stitches. She then grew serious again and rested her hand on his. "If you can, keep him out of the family business. If you can't, all I ask is that you please keep him safe."

"With my every breath, Grace. You know I will but you don't need to worry," Dean said and cast his eyes to the door as if expecting someone.

"Where's Sammy, Dean," Grace asked and when she saw his eyes shift guiltily, horror washed over her and she demanded, "Dean, what have you done?"

But Sam hadn't gone to the crossroads, he hadn't even left the floor Grace was on. Instead had gone to the Neonatal unit and as he stood next to Bobby he told him what Dean wanted him to do and why he wouldn't do it, why he couldn't do it. He told Bobby that he could never make a choice that belonged to God and to God alone. He could never take away Grace's faith in God and in her own salvation because when he had died he hadn't exactly seen the bright light but he had felt safe and warm and loved unconditionally...if only for a little while and if he could be sure that he would feel that way forever he wouldn't have wanted to come back.


	23. Chapter 23

Bobby waited until the neonatal nurse had walked away from Baby Winchester's plexiglass bassinet and out of the room before he entered the new baby parking lot and lifted Grace's bouncing baby boy up and cradled him against his chest. He was a big one, almost ten pounds, and because he was a Caesarian he didn't come out looking like a pterodactyl as Grace had feared. His head was perfect and his face wasn't smooshed, another of Grace's worries. He was quite beautiful, for a boy, although the dark hair was disconcerting, probably a throw back to John Winchester's dark good looks.

Sam watched Bobby through the window and never moved to stop him when he left the room with the infant. He simply followed him, wraithlike, down to the ICU wondering all the time what Dean was going to do to him when Grace was gone and his lie was discovered. He hoped his brother would understand because he was doing it for Grace...and for him.

"Hey beautiful." Bobby's welcomed voice drifted through Grace's lethargy and she opened her eyes to see his smile and the bundle held close to his heart. "I borrowed him and, just like a prison break, let's hope a rolled up blanket looks a lot like a swaddled up baby. Besides he looks healthy enough to me to go visiting."

Grace had to agree as she cradled his weight in the crook of her arm and pulled his little striped beanie down to cover his dark hair. "Oh Dean, look what we did," Wanda gushed tears streaming down her cheeks, "He's the most beautiful baby in the world."

Dean's face looked stricken as he watched mother and son. Bobby cleared his throat and gave him a pointed look but he just glanced up at the clock.

"Aw Grace, you would have said the same thing if he had came out lookin' like Pterry the Pterodactyl." Bobby put the emphasis on the p's and he was absolutely right.

She loved this baby unconditionally and knew that Dean, if not at this very moment, would in time. She needed to go to her grave knowing that her husband would love his child wholeheartedly and not conditionally, the way his father had loved him.

"I'm gonna leave you two alone, go see if I can't find Sam," Bobby leaned in to kiss Grace on the cheek and whispered, "It's in God's hands, honey."

Grace closed her eyes and grabbing his hand before he could move away she whispered back, "Tell him that I love him and that no one is ever truly forsaken."

Bobby gently rubbed the back of her hand as she cuddled the baby and blinking back tears he turned and left them alone. He walked past Sam as he waited in the shadows.

Sam stood unseen, quietly looking through the window into Grace's world, a stainless steel, glass and tile cubicle in the ICU ward, one of a dozen fanning out from the circular nurse's station. Dean sat next to her on the bed; his hand out, holding onto hers for dear life. Sam knew Dean was living in hell and he mouthed a silent prayer for God to please let him change places with his brother. As he said the words he heard a barely audible rustling and Castiel suddenly stood next to him dressed in his rumpled raincoat, his tie loosened, staring quietly through the same pane of glass.

"Can you do it?" Sam asked turning to the angel.

Castiel looked at him with kindness in his eyes and asked, "You'd take his pain?"

Without missing a beat Sam replied, "Hell, yeah. In a second."

Castiel pursed his lips thoughtfully. "You'd take his pain?"

Sam nodded.

"And his joy?"

Sam's prayer was a double-edged sword. Taking his brother's place would take away Dean's sorrow but in turn it would leave his brother without his love for Grace or hers for him. Sam swallowed hard and his chin quivered. "Then can you heal her?"

"I'm sorry." It was all Castiel would say and, at that point, Sam thought angels were pretty much fucking useless.

"Then if you can't help him then why are you here?"

Castiel's forehead furrowed and he shifted his shoulders wearily, took a breath and said softly, "Dean's not my mission."

Sam looked at him with questioning eyes.

"Nor are you," the angel told him.

Sam then knew that Grace wouldn't miraculously get better, that she would die soon and that his brother would be devastated. "This will kill him you know."

The angel heard Sam's warning but Castiel had great faith in Dean Winchester. "He's been through worse."

Sam knew his brother better than anyone else and begged to differ. "I don't think he has."

The two of them went back to watching through the window. Grace's eyes closed again and the steady beeping of the monitor was the only sound in the room. They stood in silence and Castiel was content to let his unseen radiance soothe the younger Winchester, a trick he'd learned the last time he'd been on earth when God had sent him as an angel of peace and not as a warrior.

Sam's thoughts quieted but his tears still threaten to overflow and spill down his cheeks and with a voice thick with emotion he asked, "You're a pretty big gun. Why not just send a reaper?"

"God's greatest love is for his truly faithful," Castiel only replied.

Sam was pretty sure Grace hadn't gone to church once the whole time she'd been with his brother...unless it had been to St. Mattress's.

Knowing his thoughts Castiel shook his head. "Grace doesn't need a church. Azazel did some terrible things to her and yet she never questioned Him once."

"She was just a kid..."

"...nor would she now."

"But it's not right," Sam whispered, "To take a mother away from her child."

"Sometimes it can't be helped," Castiel said and Sam knew he was talking about Mary.

"Is she..." Sam started then fumbled for words.

"God's greatest protection is for his soldiers. His greatest rewards for those who fight for Him." Castiel hoped Sam would find comfort in his words and then he was gone.

Smiling sadly Sam turned back to look at the couple in the room and felt a rush of love and pride when he looked at the two of them. He wondered if God knew just how lucky he was to have Dean Winchester...and Grace.

Grace looked from the baby's sleeping face to Dean's. He looked so grave but still so damned handsome. She would never get over how gorgeous he was and never tired of telling him so...especially when he was mad at her about something. "Have I told you you're looking especially handsome today, baby?" she said weakly.

Dean shook his head and smiled in spite of himself. He then grew serious again. "Why didn't you tell me, Grace?"

Tell him what? There were so many things she wanted to tell him but would now never get the chance. Things like how patient he was with his grandkids, how distinguished he looked with gray hair, that she thought his love handles were cute, how she loved him more now than the first day they'd met.

"They would have taken the baby early to try to save me. They couldn't promise me he would even live let alone be all right and I couldn't let you choose between me and your son."

"So you made the decision on your own."

"What part of 'Gee Dean, Grace sure is bossy' don't you get, honey?"

"We could have had other babies."

Grace shook her head. "This one is special," she said and kissed the baby's beanied head again.

Dean wasn't so sure. Carrying this baby to term had, for all intents and purposes, killed her. Killed the one person he loved above all others and he was already letting his grief affect his feelings toward the infant and his relationship with those closest to him by letting Sam to do the unthinkable for him.

Grace's hand now felt too heavy to lift as her strength continued to fail. She managed to wiggle her fingers and Dean took them in his.

"We never talked seriously about a name," he reminded her.

Grace's eyes fluttered shut and his heart leapt into his throat. After a few seconds they opened again. "I'll let you decide...but hear me and hear me well. If you name this child Quentin Tarantino Winchester..." She was going to say that she would come back to haunt him but his pain was still too new, too raw. "Just don't do it, okay?"

He laughed softly and wrapped his other hand around hers. "But what about Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction? They're classics."

"Consider yourself warned."

"I suppose you'd be happy if I named him _Castiel._"

Grace smiled down at the baby and drew in another ragged breath and as her voice grew weaker Dean leaned in. "Take care of my baby," she whispered between short breaths, the five words taxing her laboring lungs.

"Like he was my own," Dean said and touched the baby's head.

Oh, how she was going to miss his sense of humor but her time was short and he'd misunderstood. She shook her head and repeated her request, her voice barely a whisper this time.

"You know I'll take good care of her until you're well enough to drive her again."

Again she shook her head. She was out of breath and lifted a trembling hand and placed it over his heart and he finally understood. After she was gone she wanted him to take care of himself.

After she was gone. The words couldn't have hurt him more if someone had taken a knife and carved them into his skin and his next breath was a shudder. A few errant tears slipped from beneath his lashes and if he could have spoken at that moment he would have told her that he didn't think he could go on without her.

Grace gave him a look of sympathy and fisted her hand and rubbed it in a circular motion on her chest and Dean dashed away more errant tears. "Don't be sorry," he said more crossly than he'd intended, "You have nothing to be sorry for. You did everything right. You made an honest man out of me. You gave me a son and someone for Sammy to play with."

She smiled weakly and wished she could be there to see Sam's expression when he was blindsided by a speeding Big Wheel or forced to pretzel up and hunker down in a fort made out of couch cushions. She could only have faith that, even though he said the words, Dean would come to realize that he did indeed have a real life flesh and blood son, a son who needed him as much as he needed his son.

"You saved me, Grace. You saved my life. Talked me down from the ledge and I don't know what I'm gonna do..." His words trailed off.

"Lay beside me," she whispered to him and patted the bed.

Dean laid down beside her and rested his head on the pillow next to hers and took her hand in his again. They were nose-to-nose, the way they used to lay at the end of each day when they talk about things; important things, not so important things and sometimes just plain ridiculous things. This time there was a baby snuggled between the two of them. They'd talk late into the night but in all of their intimate conversations they'd never once discussed what they would do if one of them died.

"You're gonna be just fine, I promise," she whispered and Dean wanted to believe her but he could already feel himself getting lost. "I won't be there to take your hand but you're not alone, you'll never be alone, I'm permanent," she promised him.

"I'm so scared, Grace." He was desperate for more than words to reassure him that he would be okay, that he would be able to carry on, but words were all she had.

Grace held back her tears to be strong for him and said with a calming serenity, "Baby, don't be afraid. I've loved you forever and I'll always be there with you, to show you the way."

"I know you will," he told her and squeezing her hand, his tears falling unchecked and with a vengeance, "I just want you to remember, to take with you...Grace, I love you so much..."

She took in a trembling breath and groaned. A grimace replaced her smile and fear gripped him. He knew she was struggling valiantly against the pain, being brave for him, hanging on for him and, going against every selfish instinct he had, he summoned every ounce of courage he had left and knew he was going to let her go.

"Oh, Christ," he said and wiped his tears. He took another unsteady breath and knew that this would be the hardest thing he'd ever do, the hardest words he'd ever speak and a small whimper escaped his vigilance. Dean searched her eyes and saw only pain and forced the words past his trembling lips. "It's okay, Grace. I know you'll be with me and that we'll all be fine, the baby, Bobby, Sammy...me." He gently rubbed his knuckles against her cheek. "I know they're waiting for you, your dad and Jewels. It's okay to go, baby."

Grace heard him and as she saw her parents standing behind him she smiled one last time before her eyes closed. Dean's face was the last thing she saw before taking Castiel's outstretched hand.

Grace, his brother and their child laid together in the hospital bed as if there was no one else in the world, Dean's hand clasping Grace's, their faces together on the pillow. Sam, with his forehead pressed to the glass and tears streaming down his face, watched and knew that his brother died a little more with each fading beep of the heart monitor until it stopped pulsing all together and became a muted, flat solid tone.

The baby suddenly began to wail and Dean buried his face in Grace's hair trying to muffle the most pitiful cry of anguish Sam had ever heard. The sheer misery of it raised goose bumps on his skin and he looked heavenward, the beast in his belly slowly uncoiling, and Sam Winchester cursed Grace's God to hell.


	24. Chapter 24

Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, December 5, 2009

Dean headed swiftly down the stairs, a man on a mission, a man with a plan...and a fifth of whiskey in his jacket pocket. He was a man with a heavy but hopeful heart and kept his eyes trained on the front door reluctant to look to his right where he knew he would see either Bobby or Sam caring for the baby. He didn't know when their sympathetic looks would changed to looks of disgust for his blatant refusal to even look at the child, let alone hold him, or feed him or heaven forbid, change him and he didn't have the time or the inclination to find out. Better to be safe then to have to punch someone in the face, again. Besides the whole fucked up mess would be fixed in a matter of hours.

The Impala roared out of the salvage yard and, as Bobby watched through the window, a chill ran down his spine. He had a good idea where Dean was headed and, frankly, he'd wondered why it had taken him so long. Bobby was glad that he'd never made that promise to Grace because something in his old bones, and in the darkening skies above, told him nothing good would come of any of it. In fact, Bobby had thought about calling the cops to have them waiting on the corner but what good would a DUI and jail time do? Just pile on even more misery and maybe make Dean hate him in the process. He'd have to believe in and rely on the old adage that God took care of little children and drunks.

Walking back to the parlor Bobby passed a table near the front door and glanced down at the papers, untouched since the day they'd brought the baby home, that sat in a pile. There was a half filled out birth certificate and adoption papers for the state of South Dakota and when he saw them a pang of regret stabbed him. Bobby wanted to shove them into the table's drawer but he knew that wouldn't solve the problems facing the baby's father, problems Dean didn't need to address as long as he stayed away and stayed drunk.

Bobby came into the room and when Sam stopped rocking the infant, baby Winchester promptly spit up on his shoulder.

"Maybe you should rock a little gentler," Bobby suggested tossing him a cloth.

"I'm trying to toughen him up. He can't be barfing on the "Tilt a Hurl" as Dean likes to call it."

Bobby sat heavily on the raggedy old parlor settee and sighed before he spoke. "You know the best course of action might be to give him up. Hand him over to someone who can give him a better life than we can."

"Dean would never do that." Sam wanted to believe that Dean would never give up his own flesh and blood but he thought it was exactly what Dean might do and the idea horrified him. Sam believed that they could just give up hunting. He could let his powers go dormant. Dean could tell Castiel to go fuck himself...again...and tell him that things had changed. Sam was quiet for a moment as he reflected on the past. "Bobby, we didn't turn out too bad, did we?"

Looking into Sam's face and seeing the young man's furrowed brow and guarded eyes Bobby smiled. He couldn't have loved either boy more than if they'd been his own. "No kid. Considering the circumstances you and your brother didn't turn out too bad at all."

Sam thought so himself but deep down he knew Bobby was probably right. If they kept the baby Lilith would never give them a moment's peace. She could possibly steal him away, the way Azazel had stolen Grace, but the decision was not his or Bobby's to make. It was Dean's call and before the child's fate could be decided they'd have to wait for the baby's father to get his shit together and crawl out of the bottle.

Crossroads, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, December 5, 2009

Dean shoved the almost empty whiskey bottle into his jacket pocket and, staggering, fell to his knees and crawled the rest of the way to where the two dirt roads crossed. He began to dig a hole with his bare hands just deep enough to contain the box he'd brought with him. He looked inside to make sure everything was there, his picture, cat bones, a chunk of ambergris, goofer dust and a piece of cloth soaked in his own blood. Everything he could think of to entice the demon into dealing with him again.

He tossed the box and its contents into the hole and pushed the dirt back over it covering it completely. He tried to stand up and toppled over backwards and laid in the center of the crossroads. It was as good a place as any to wait for the bitch. And wait he did.

Ten minutes, twenty, and no demon came. Panic stricken he dug up the box again and threw in all the money he had in his pockets, his watch, his silver ring, his pendant and finally the almost empty fifth of whiskey. He appealed to the crossroads demon's baser nature but still she didn't come.

"Come on you skank bitch. I'm here to give you back my precious soul," he spat out venomously and turned to shout down one of the roads, "It's what you still want, isn't it? What you've always wanted? Well, I'm givin' it back! I don't need it!"

A breeze blew through the bare branches of the trees and the fingerlike twigs clacked t like thin brittle laughter at his shouted offer.

"Dean." The voice came from behind him but Dean knew the sound of the demon slut's voice and this wasn't it. This call wasn't the oily, sweet, demonic voice he'd expected but a soft masculine call to him. He spun around swaying unsteadily and Castiel stood before him, a sympathetic look on his usually unreadable face.

"She's not coming."

Dean blinked at him and tried to figure out why an angel was standing there when he'd clearly summoned a crossroad's demon. When he realized it was Castiel he walked up to him slowly and hit him with a wicked right cross. "I called you! I called you and you didn't come! You just let her die!"

Castiel sighed but didn't give any ground. He only turned his face to offer up his other cheek. Dean Winchester's raw emotions washed over Castiel but the hunter didn't hit him again. He just stood glaring at him and when the angel reached out to touch him, to absorb some of the anger, to ease some of the pain, Dean batted his arm away. "Screw you, you son of a bitch. I needed you days ago, when she was suffering."

"We were there," Castiel said softly, "and I did all I could."

"Then why is she dead?" Dean wanted an answer and when he got none he told Castiel to go fuck himself and called out to the demon again. He was met with only the whisper of the cold night wind.

"The demon's not coming," Castiel repeated and was hit by a wave of contempt.

"Because you're here," Dean decided and, flinging his arm out drunkenly, demanded, "So unfurl those flea bitten wings of your and piss off, Cas."

Castiel stayed where he was and said again but with more finality, "The demon's not coming!"

Dean Winchester heard the truth in the angel's voice, the truth he already suspected and replied sarcastically, "So what, then? You're here to comfort me? What the fuck ever, dude." Dean turned his back on him,

Castiel then reminded him, "I'm no longer an angel of comfort, I'm an angel of retribution."

Turning back around to face him, Dean snarled, "Then why don't you smite my ass back to hell 'cause I've got serious issues with your fucked up boss." Turning his back once more on Castiel, Dean walked back to the center of the crossroads and began to scrape away the dirt. He searched his pockets for something more to sweeten the deal and, when he heard the angel's voice again, he wondered why Castiel was still hanging around.

"She's not coming," Castiel said for a fourth time.

Dean stood again his eyes mad with grief and ready to bargain with anyone. "But I'll give 'em what they want, me to torment for all eternity. Hell, I'll even be their chief torturer and bottle washer again. Anything they want. Just bring her back."

Prepared to bear the brunt of his anger Castiel squared his shoulders. Dean walked back to where he stood and the angel could smell the alcohol on his breath; see his recent struggles etched deep in the lines of his unshaven face and he could clearly see the pain in his eyes. He knew that Dean Winchester was living in a hell on earth and was desperate to exchange it for hell proper yet again. "They don't have anything with which to deal," Castiel told Dean and watched the confusion in his charge's eyes, "Nothing to trade."

"Grace..." Dean started.

Castiel cut him off and said gently, "Is someplace safe."

The hunter seemed to grow smaller, to collapse in on himself. He staggered back a step but refused to give up and reached forward and grabbed Castiel's coat front in his fists. "But you can get her back!" he shouted and pulled the angel into the crossroads.

"No, I can't," Castiel told Dean truthfully, "But I can take away the pain."

Dean looked down at the ground and was silent for a moment. He then looked back up and into Castiel's guileless eyes and pleaded, "Oh God, please."

The angel raised his right hand and Dean Winchester could have sworn that he heard whispered voices just moments before Castiel placed two fingers on his forehead and his world went blessedly dark.


	25. Chapter 25

One-Year Ag

The sounds of Dean's wretchedness brought Sam out of his reverie and out of the car and over to the patch of ditch weed where Dean knelt, his hands on his thighs, trying pathetically to breath through his now dry heaves. Sam held out a handful of tissues and Dean took them with a wry look and trembling hand and was pretty sure he was done. There wasn't anything left for him to throw up except maybe his stomach lining.

With Sam's help Dean got back on his feet and back to the Impala. He reached into the back seat and produced a half empty fifth of Jim Beam he took a slug and swished out his mouth then spit it out. He took another sip and swallowed it waiting to see if he could hold it down before finally getting back into the passenger seat. They drove on, the silence drawn out and deafening and broken only by a call from Bobby.

Before Sam could even answer Dean said, "Tell him we're ten minutes outside of Cinci and to order me a Heineken."

Sam answered and although he was shocked at Bobby's voice on the other end of the line he relayed the bizarre message and snapped the phone shut. "How'd you know it was Bobby ...and that he'd be in Cincinnati?"

"At the Holy Grail Tavern and Grill to be exact," Dean said and leaned his head back and let himself smile, "And Sammy, this is gonna be the most important night of my life."

The Holy Grail, a typical sports bar and college hangout, was packed and noisy as replays of last weeks college football games, including the Bearcats 28 to 20 win over Louisville, played out on various television set at the tables and tacked to the walls. Sam felt a sense of familiarity and a pang of regret being back in the college atmosphere while Dean felt elated. He was getting a do over, a divine mulligan, a chance to preserve the one perfect thing in his life.

Sensing Dean's state of mind but not quite understanding it Sam grabbed his arm and led him to a booth that had just cleared out and told him to sit while he went for beers and to find Bobby. He also suggested facetiously that while he was just sitting there he should try to cheer up.

As Sam headed for the bar Bobby, standing nearby with a Rolling Rock in his hand, tilted it back. He spotted Dean out of the corner of his eye sitting at one of the booths and was actually shocked by what he saw. The boy was markedly thinner than the last time he'd seen him and dark circles rimmed his eyes, which shined with an almost divine light, or was it with an unholy fervor? Bobby got off his stool and placed his empty on the bar then headed over to where Dean sat and Dean wondered where Grace was.

Sam came back to the table, beers in hand, and sat down across from his brother. Bobby scooted into the booth next to him. "So, what's this about an angel loosing her grace? Bobby asked then added, "Sorry I couldn't help but I was working a job in upstate New York."

"And?" Dean asked pointedly.

"And...I didn't get your message until yesterday." Bobby glanced sidelong at Sam who just shrugged.

"Cut the crap, Bobby. Where is she?"

"She?" Bobby repeated.

"Grace Downey."

Bobby kept his demeanor passive even though the two words were like a bucket of ice-cold water hitting him in the face. How did the boy know he'd found her? He hadn't really found her but he had found out about Grace and her mother Jewels from another hunter who stuck exclusively to werewolves, like the Downeys. But the news sucked so he just figured he'd just take the information to the grave with him because Dean hadn't spoken of Jewels or her daughter since he was a teenager. Bobby should have known better because for some unfathomable reason God seemed to have it in for Dean Winchester.

"What made you think of her?" Bobby asked testing the emotional waters.

Dean looked at him, a flicker of suspicion crossing his face. "She's here with you, isn't she?" Dean asked and waited for Bobby's big reveal. "She was on the werewolf hunt with you."

"I didn't say anything about a werewolf but yeah, I was hunting one and I ran into a guy named Dale Pike who used to run into Jewels and Grace on hunts from time to time," he took a pull on his beer, "Says Jewels was killed by a drunk driver in 2002."

"I know," Dean said calmly with no hint of surprise or distress, "But where's Grace? You know, long blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes and a body to make a grown man cry Grace."

Sam looked bewildered and wondered if his brother had finally lost it completely as he insisted Bobby answer a question that clearly puzzled the older hunter.

"I don't know who you're talkin' about," Bobby said warily, "but Grace Downey was in the vehicle with her mother. She died in the crash just short of her 21st birthday."

Dean clamped his lips together tightly. His nostrils flared as he breathed in through his nose afraid to open his mouth. _You son of a bitch, Castiel! You mother fucking son of a bitch! _Dean opened his mouth but it was only to take in a couple of deep breaths to keep from getting sick all over again. He'd been physically ill after finally baring his soul to Sam; describing the visions that danced in his nightmares, the things that drove him to the bottle and the thing that were still vivid in his mind. He was ashamed of the lengths he'd gone to in hell to ease his suffering but he had been hopeful too. Grace Downey, the woman who would change his wretched life to something beautiful and rewarding, would be waiting for him in Cincinnati. A fucking angel was dicking with him and instead of being pissed off Dean was suddenly scared to death.

Middle of Nowhere, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, November 26, 2008

Dean sat beside a large oak tree on one of its ancient fallen branches freezing his ass off, a bottle of Johnny Walker in one hand and a sharp knife in the other. Under the tree, the only real vegetation in the expanse of wildly growing, wind whipped prairie grass, was where he had buried her. At least he though it was. His memories grew dimmer by the minute and because her face was fading away he sat on the branch alternating slugs of whiskey with methodical slices through the skin on his forearms.

He held tightly to the bottle, its surface slick with partially crystallized blood frozen by the cold South Dakota wind, while large droplets fell into the snow at his feet turning the icy crystals to blood flavored snow cones. He took another swig to offset the pain, so exquisite in its intensity. It was a technique he'd learned from Alistair, turning the blade just so, and he cried out more than once but there was no one to hear it. He was alone, or so he thought, until he looked out over the great expanse of snow and saw Sammy coming over the rise heading directly for him.

There was no time and he was far too fucked up to completely hide how he'd been idling away the hours so Dean surreptitiously took his boot and tried to push enough snow over the blood without drawing attention to what he was doing to hide the evidence. Sam would have enough questions and recrimination once he got a good look at his arms and he thought belatedly that he should have remembered to bring his jacket with him from the car. But what was done was done and he could only roll down his sleeves and tak a good long pull on the bottle. "Hey, Sammy," he said drunkenly pointing to the branch on wich he sat, "Have a seat."

As he pointed Dean's sleeve scraped against his open wounds and he hissed but Sam didn't seem to notice as he sat down next to his brother and took the whiskey bottle Dean offered and took a sip.

"How'd ya find me?" Dean took another pull on the bottle and avoided looking Sam in the eye.

"The same way I found you in Cheyenne and again in Vegas." Sam was tired of tracking his brother down, tired of bailing him out of jail, tired of watching him self destruct over figments of his imagination.

"Yeah," Dean laughed sloppily and dropped the bottle, "Ya pinged me."

"I just came to tell you that I think I've got a line on Lilith. A police report from Danbury, Connecticut about a little girl, stolen toys, dead Santas."

Dean leaned out to retrieve his whiskey and his shirtsleeve rode up higher on his arm and revealed the angry, bloody slices.

"What the fuck, Dean!" Sam grabbed Dean's blood soaked shirtsleeve and looking down he saw more blood in the snow at his feet.

Sam just stared at his brother and Dean's eyes filled with tears that slipped unchecked down his face. "I can't remember her face anymore. I buried her here, under this tree and I could barely remember how to get here."

"So, what?" Sam asked hotly. Disgusted he let go of Dean's arm and pulled the knife from his brother's boot, "You're practicing to slit your wrists?"

Dean blinked owlishly in confusion, looked down at the knife in his brother's hand and grabbed his arm in a vise like hold. "No, no Sammy. I just can't remember her face any more. But now, when I see the scars, I'll remember. I'll remember the pain and then I'll remember her. This way I can never forget."

Sam didn't know what to say. He suspected his brother was too far gone to even take the lifeline he was trying to throw him. They sat in silence, Sam was afraid to look at Dean, afraid to leave but reluctant to stay any longer than he had to.

"Did you know I have a son?" Dean tried to remember what the kid's name was but drew a blank.

Sam turned to look his brother in the face, to tell him enough was enough, but he saw the truth in his brother's eyes. Anger boiled over hotly and Sam lunged at him. The two of them toppled backwards off of the branch with Sam trying to either choke the life out of his brother or some sense into him.

They struggled but Dean, too drunk to put up much of a fight, quickly gave in. His arms started to bleed copiously again.

Sam stood up and brushed off the snow that covered him, his temper and his voice barely controlled. He would play Dean's game. "You had a son and because things didn't go the way you wanted them to go and the pain was so bad that you couldn't stand it, you pussed out."

Dean's tearful eyes turned cold as Sam continued.

"What'd you do? Make a deal that backfired on you? We'll you deserve it. I'd give anything to have a woman who loved me as much as you say this Grace did, and a son, God, even if was only for a little while."

Dean wiped his face on his bloody sleeves and tried to reach out to his brother but Sam backed away, a look of disgust on his face and Dean struck back verbally. "I didn't make a deal, Sammy" Dean said evenly, his voice thick with anger, "You were supposed to do it but you lied to me."

Sam stared at him, his nostrils flared, a sure sign of the anger he tried hard to control. "Fuck you, Dean. You're no better than dad," he said coldly then corrected himself, "No, you're worse. Dad may not have been around much but at least he didn't wish we'd never been born."

Dean knew they were close to crossing the line, if they hadn't already, and he reached out to his brother again.

This time Sam took his hand but only to pull him in close enough to punch him in the face and as Dean lay on his back, his nose bleeding profusely, Sam verbally kicked him while he was down. "Making deals was Dad's thing, your thing, Dean. I just hope the next person you trade your soul for can forgive you."


	26. Chapter 26

Middle of Nowhere, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, December 5, 2008

Castiel appeared out of nowhere and held out a hand. He pulled Dean to his feet and the two of them watched as Sam, his back ramrod straight, walked away and disappeared over the rise.

"He hates me, you know, for making the deal," Dean said morosely.

"Hate's probably too harsh a word for what Sam feels," Castiel replied.

"Cas, did I make a mistake bringing him back? Not letting him go?"

"I don't know."

Dean shivered with the cold and his arms hurt like, well hell, but he couldn't bring himself to leave. He was sure he would never be able to find the spot again.

"Just let her go," Castiel suggested, his coat open, his host impervious to the cold.

Dean's lips quivered as he wiped blood from them. "I can't. I'd rather have the pain of loosing her times a thousand than no memory of her at all."

"I can see that," Castiel replied taking in the blood on Dean's face and clothing. The angel took Dean's hands in his and raised up the hunter's arms and the wounds began to heal as every memory of Grace Winchester, good and bad, came rushing back flooding the young widower with pain...and joy.

Crossroads, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, December 5, 2009

Dean Winchester opened his eyes. Disoriented and still drunk on his ass, he stood up and heard the rustle of wings and the hiss of a demon in the darkness.

"Hello, Dean," a decidedly sexy, un-angelic voice said, "I hear you've come to make a deal."

Dean looked around and spotted the crossroad's demon standing under a street lamp. This time it was a blue eyed blonde dressed in a minuscule slinky midnight blue dress and the obvious wasn't lost on him. Castiel stood by her side.

"I thought you said she didn't have what I wanted," Dean said to the angel.

"I can arrange it," Castiel replied his face etched with sadness.

The demon rattled the contents of Dean's box. "We've missed you, Dean."

He snorted contemptuously. He wasn't afraid to go back to hell and as much as he wanted Grace back, for their son's sake and his own, he couldn't take what the demon was offering. He walked up to her and snatched the box from her hand and said, "Fuck you, bitch."

Castiel smiled, unfurled his wings and, shielding Dean from the light, showed the demon his true form.

Singer Salvage Yard, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, December 6, 2009

Dean picked up his crying son and as if he knew he was safe in his father's arms the infant quieted immediately. A smile of wonder spread across Dean's face.

Bobby and Sam stood in the doorway, both relieved to see that Dean was finally taking an active interest in his son. They were also hesitant about giving up their charge to a rank amateur.

Rocking him gently in his arms as he walked around the room, Dean looked down into his son's face and said in a quiet voice, "Hello there, John Ross Robert Winchester."

Bobby smiled and beamed proudly while Sam's smile faded until Dean said within earshot of his brother, "You tell Sammy not to worry Johnny 'cause we're gonna buy you a big old Golden Retriever and we're gonna name him Sammy."

Sam's smile returned and his cheeks dimpled. He was satisfied because Goldens were awesome dogs and getting a dog was a step in the right direction if they were going to live a normal mundane life.

"And you," Dean continued to talk to the baby who was content to just stare up at him, "You're gonna grow up to be big, strong and handsome, a veritable chick magnet, and a mechanic. And above all you're gonna grow up to be happy because your momma made me swear."

Dean sat down in the rocking chair and continued to talk to his son. The baby watched his lips move as his father told him about his crazy grandma Jewels, who let him drive a car when he was only ten years old, and about his grandpa John, who could fix any car that was ever built. Later on he would tell him all about his beautiful mother but right now the memories were too fresh and too painful.

"Do you think he'll really be a mechanic?" Sam asked Bobby as they walked away to give Dean some privacy so father and son could continue to bond.

"I really hope so," Bobby replied saying a quick, silent prayer to that effect.

But Castiel knew differently and when he appeared before Dean the hunter stood and held onto his son tightly, his eyes growing cold.

The angel took a step closer to father and son. "He's a fine boy."

"What'd you want?" Dean took a step back and swallowed hard because he knew the answer before the angel even spoke

"Your son," Castiel said in his deceptively soft and calm voice.

Dean clutched the baby closer to his chest. He'd only just found his way back to him, his son, his flesh and blood and he was damned if some angel, no matter how powerful, was going to take him from him. "You'll have to kill me to get him." The words words were clipped, Dean's voice icy and Castiel believed every one of them.

"You're thinking of quitting." Castiel's words were both a question and a statement.

"Damn straight," Dean said, his jaw working furiously as his anger grew, and the baby, feeling his agitation, started to fret.

"You'd let Lilith have free reign to break the rest of the seals?"

"I can't stop her."

"God thinks you can."

"I don't give a rat's ass. Sam and I are done, finished, we gave at the office."

"I know what all of this has cost you..."

"Do you? Or are you like Anna said, cold, emotionless sons of bitches?"

"We...I...feel everything."

"Then how could you just watch her die and never lift a finger or even shed a single tear?" Dean spat out.

"I can't cry." Castiel stated his simple truth but Dean saw something in his eyes. The angel may not have been able to shed real tears but he felt pain, maybe even a smidgen of sorrow and of guilt.

Dean warned him, "You'd better watch yourself Cas, your faith is leaking."

"I have great faith," Castiel countered, "But without you I don't think Lilith can be stopped."

"Bullshit! Pull someone else from hell."

"Martyrs are few and far between."

"I wasn't a martyr for "the cause," Dean said sarcastically, "I just wanted to save my brother."

"And that's why the demons were so angry, so ruthless, so determined to make you one of their own. It's a concept beyond them; you damning yourself to save someone you loved."

"Yeah but maybe I really did belong there because when I couldn't take it any longer I just wanted to save my own ass...at any cost."

"Perhaps that's why God has chosen you."

Dean looked at the angel as if he'd gone bat shit insane and demanded, "He chose me because I like ripping the flesh from some poor schmuck's bones?"

Castiel suddenly appeared directly behind Dean and looked over his shoulder at the baby cradled protectively against his chest. He touched the hunter gently on the shoulder and said, "These are the 'poor schmucks' that you tortured."

Suddenly Dean was back in hell but instead of seeing the faces and hearing the screams of his victims, the screams he couldn't shut out...ever...he saw the essence of their evil. Horrific pictures of the most heinous acts imaginable flew through his mind's eye and threatened to drown him in evil, to drive him mad.

As suddenly as they started the images stopped and Dean found himself sitting back in the rocker, his arms empty. Castiel held the infant now but Dean was too disoriented, too nauseous to stand. He just listened as the angel spoke. "What you did was virtuous. What you felt was righteous. It wasn't the love of inflicting pain but the love of battle and those were God's enemies."

Dean could have tortured only scumbags and liking it might simply be the hunter in him but he knew for a fact that not everyone on death row is 'guilty of something'. What if he'd tortured an innocent? He lowering his gaze to his fists clenched tightly in his lap. "What about my father?"

"Like you, you father never belonged in Hell. And like you, he suffered on the rack until I was able to light his way, lead him to the gate and lift him up." Castiel gently placed the babe in his crib.

Dean thought about what Castiel had just said. He looked into the angel's face and the secret was there for him to see, Castiel's mistake. "You lit the way and the others followed. You led Lilith right to the devil's gate. You let her out of hell."

"And you killed the only demon on earth powerful enough to keep her there." Castiel bowed his head and, if he had been able to cry, tears would have rolled down his cheeks, As it was he simply looked at Dean and said, "I need your help; God needs your help."

"I'm not sorry I killed the son of a bitch and I'd really like to help you out," Dean said flippantly, "but I think I'd rather live."

"Just a day ago you wanted to die."

"You had your chance," Dean said smugly and Castiel thought he should know the truth.

"Bringing Grace back wasn't an option."

Dean was up on his feet. He charged the angel and grabbed him by the shirtfront. "You tell me right now, right to my face, that you and God didn't have anything to do with her death! That you didn't kill her just so I would raise her son to be a hunter!"

Castiel was shocked by Dean's barely contained anger. "God sacrificed his Son for you," he stated passionately.

Dean pushed him back into a wall, his bare faces inches from Castiel's when he said, "Well, I won't sacrifice mine for you!"

"Then protect him from Lilith! Train him! Make him a hunter! Help him to fulfill his destiny. Teach him to go on without you!"

Dean closed his eyes and relaxed his hold on the angel as the last glimmer of a half way normal life for him and his boy winked out of existence. The thought of it drained him of all his strength and Castiel, content to let his charge hang onto him for as long as he needed, stood solid and mute.

Finally Dean stepped back and sighed. "How long do I have?"

"I can't tell you the future but Lilith is single minded in what she wants and ruthless in how she obtains it."

"And she wants my son?" Castiel nodded and Dean muttered, "Friggin' hose-beast."

"Grace protected him for as long as she could."

Looking down at baby John as he peacefully slept, Dean tried to burn the image into his mind's eye, into his soul, to keep it forever. He was barely able to get the words out and asked, "And after I'm gone?"

"He'll have Bobby."

"Not Sammy?" It was a simply question, one that Castiel chose not to answer and Dean let it be. "And after Bobby's gone?"

"Your son will never walk alone." With his hand again resting on Dean's shoulder Castiel pointed to the center of the room where a brilliant light appeared enveloping everything.

As the two of them stood, unharmed within the white-hot brilliance, Dean saw what appeared to be a figure. A magnificent warrior dressed in battle armor, long blonde hair swirling in the deafening, tornadic winds that surrounded him, a monstrous sword of pure flame clenched in his raised fist. Dean wanted to reach out and touch the weapon, wanted to ask the fierce angelic warrior his name but he couldn't find his voice, he couldn't move a muscle and as quickly as the apparition had appeared, it was gone.

The room grew dim and quiet once more and Dean turned to check on his son. Baby John continued to sleep swaddled tightly in a receiving blanket and Dean's eyes turned once more to Castiel.

"His name is Michael," the angel said.

Later that night the clock on the dresser, the one where the cow jumped over the moon and the dinnerware ran off to prove that mixed marriages can work, struck midnight with a gentle chime. Dean was in the nursery gently rocking his son in the antique rocker that Bobby had given Grace who had promptly given it to Weeping Wanda. The nursery was the room in which he felt closest to his Grace. The room where he felt he would be spending a good deal of his time suffering the trials and tribulations and reveling in the joy and wonder of being a father. In a hushed voice he spoke to her. "Hi Grace, it's me, Dean. So tell me Grace, if I say "dirty diapers" three times in the reflection of a Lysol spray can, will they just magically disappear? No, don't hang up!"

Dean went on to tell her that he'd named the baby after their respective fathers and Bobby and that they were all probably going to be okay. He hesitated for a moment and then added. "Grace, you know when they talk about kids and their imaginary playmates? Wait 'til I tell you about Johnny's."

FIN

And so ends another saga.

I'd like to take this one ahead to see how Dean fares as a father and then further ahead to see how John II fares with Uncle Sammy and finally to where John II is on his own but for now, it's back to Sammy and his witch.

Again, thank you to all who stopped by to take a look and for all of your kind reviews.


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